LENS ENVY

Okay, I admit it. I have lens envy.  You know – that feeling you get when you shooting with your consumer level lenses and you see someone with a big high quality lens that screams “I’m a pro!” Immediately you believe your pictures can’t be as good as theirs.  But that is not necessarily true.  As one such pro said, “the quality of the picture starts six inches behind the camera.”  That is true.  But it is still nice to have a great lens for the situation. 

This winter I have been taking pictures for the girls’ basketball team using a Canon EF-S 55-250mm 1:4-5.6 IS STM lens.  Unfortunately, many of the gyms have very bad lighting so I had to use a high ISO to get a shutter speed fast enough to freeze action.  Even then many pictures left a lot to be desired or needed a significant amount of post processing work.  The composition and action I captured were good enough for the local paper to use in their online editions and a couple printed editions. 

I was getting along using my basic lens and ignored my lens envy.  That is until a friend let me borrow his EF 70-200 1:2.8 L series IS II USM lens.  Wow!  What a difference it made.  Being able to shoot at f2.8 enabled me to use a lower ISO and reduce noise.  The images were much sharper and brighter. My need for post processing was significantly reduced.  So now my lens envy is back!  You know what is on my wish list for my birthday and next Christmas!!!