you get what you pay for

These days, I am constantly tempted to buy new lenses. I now own the general-purpose EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 and the EF 50mm f/1.4 portrait lens. They are both decent, but have some obvious shortcomings.

The 18-55 lacks the mid-to-low-frequency contrast that makes professional lenses produce professionally-vivid results. The hood is too short to be of much use, so I go without. It produces obvious chromatic aberration in high contrast areas. At 55mm, even on a 1.6x-crop sensor, is not long enough for almost a third of the shots I want to take. Finally, it is a EF-S lens, which will not be compatible with the full-frame camera I assume will be my next body.

The 50mm improves on the kit lens in several areas. It has very little chromatic aberration. Its wider maximum aperture (a full four stops faster than the kit lens @ 50mm) allows much faster shutter speeds to cut down on camera shake - in fact, in bright sunlight @ ISO 100, even with a polarizer set to kill, my shutter is not fast enough to properly expose at f/1.4. The 50mm is slightly sharper - it produces marginally higher high-frequency contrast. (I think it's only slightly better because the 18-55 resolves almost as much detail as the Digital Rebel can resolve, so there's not much room for improvement.) It has noticeably better low-to-mid frequency contrast. Flare from light sources outside the frame is practically non-existent, even without the lens hood.

The 50mm adds new problems too. At anything below 2.8, auto-focus is unreliable. Even when painstakingly focus-bracketed, at f/1.4-2.0 the lens is softer than the kit lens is wide open. And in that range of apertures, chromatic aberration is replaced by the most horrific color fringing I've yet seen. Halos is the appropriate word here - we're talking 10+ pixels in radius. It's an interesting soft-focus effect that I'm sure is great for studio portraits, but not when you're going for realism. But, the most glaring problem is it’s a prime - an 80mm prime, in 35mm terms. A sharp lens that is half the focal length you really wanted struggles to match a mediocre lens of the correct focal length – a lens that is twice the focal length you need is even worse.

That's my current setup. What am I missing? Obviously, a telephoto. An ultra-wide-angle (BTW, why is it super telephoto, but ultra wide-angle?). A macro. A tilt-shift lens.

Well, the tilt-shift is right out. I'm not spending well over a grand just to "correct" the perspective of buildings. I like real-world perspective just fine. The tilt might be nice, but it's not a high priority.

Macros, while I'm sure are fun to use and very sharp, are just not my style. The world doesn't need anymore amateur shots of bugs and flowers.

So that leaves ultra-wide and telephoto. The first thing I found out when I started using my kit lens is that it wasn’t nearly long enough. After trying out the Tamron 70-300mm for a few days, I found that while the 70-200mm range (112-320mm equivalent) was occasionally useful, leaving the lens on the camera was simply not feasible. 112mm equivalent is too long for most subjects on a photo walk. So I returned it.

Next, I salivated over Canon’s EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5. This looks like a nice lens, with nice optics, nice focusing, and a not-so-nice $700 street price. Ultimately, though, I decided against it on two counts (three, if you include the price). One, it’s an EF-S lens - likely incompatible with my next body. Two, I know it’s going to be very hard to find interesting, uncluttered compositions with a 16mm-equivalent focal length. My compositions are sloppy enough at 29mm equivalent.

So next I considered wide-to-short-tele zooms, as replacements for my kit lens. The leading contenders here are: EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6, EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6, EF 24-105mm f/4L, Tamron 18-200mm f/3.5-6.3, and Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8. All three Canons have image stabilization, which I’m dying for. I seldom use my tripod because it is so wobbly, and am not now willing to pony up the $400 for a solid-yet-compact model. I would much rather put that $400 into image stabilization. The Tamrons, at about $350, are tempting values, but the 18-200 has inadequate image quality for my tastes, and the 28-75 is not a very useful focal length range for me. Meanwhile, the Canons are too expensive ($430, $550, and $1250 respectively) for me to justify right now.

So next I thought a Canon S2 IS could get me an outstanding focal length range, in a much more compact package, for under $500. But, by this time, the image quality, while not much worse than the 18-200mm, was just not good enough for me.

Today, with the introduction of the Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS, I’ve completed the circle and am looking at telephoto zooms again. This one is far more appealing than its decade-old predecessor. The new lens has state-of-the-art image stabilization, faster autofocus, and what looks like significantly improved optics (especially at 300mm, where it counts). I have never seriously considered the EF 70-200 f/4L. It undoubtedly creates stunning photos, but the thing is positively huge and glaringly white. Not for candid shots, which is what I would use a telephoto for.

But, again with the 70-300, we come to the problem of price: $650. That’s only $22 short of what I paid for both my camera body and kit lens.

Canon marketing is quite clever when it comes to their EOS line. The bodies present an irresistible value, combining industry-leading image quality with highly competitive prices at every level, except at the tippy-top, where they have no competition. However, the prices for lenses, while in line with Nikons and cheaper than Leicas or Olympus’s, border on extortion.

So why do so many people (including me) buy them anyway? My theory is that most people shop comparatively. If you’re new to the SLR world, it’s impossible to know how much a lens will be worth to you as your photographic hobby/career develops. Compared to the other lenses in Canon’s lineup, the 70-300 is fairly priced – in fact, most of Canon’s lenses seem to be priced at the exact value they merit compared to other Canons. The 70-300mm IS is $200 more than the 75-300mm IS it replaces, but it promises 5mm on the wide end, usable autofocus speed, much-improved image stabilization, and most importantly, decent image quality. The older 75-300 was $200 more than the non-IS version, but having experienced the near impossibility of handholding a 480mm-equivalent lens without camera shake, I’d say $200 for image stabilization is good value.

The perspective comes when you compare the Canons to third-party offerings. The Tamrons I’ve looked at are inferior in small ways to their Canon counterparts, but are also drastically cheaper. Compared to the Canon 75-300mm f/4-5.6 III, the Tamron 70-300mm, is smaller, lighter, has far better close-focus capability, and comes with a lens hood. The Tamron is also almost $100 cheaper. Similarly, the Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8 is much smaller, lighter, and less than one-third the price of the Canon 24-70mm f/2.8, but lacks the latter’s USM and weather sealing. In my mind, both are better values, and the Tamron 28-75 is a steal. So, again, why do people buy Canons?

Because they offer the lenses that people want – at least closer to what they want than Tamron and Sigma. It’s great that Tamron offers a cut-rate version of Canon’s 24-70, but the pros are gonna choose the Canon for the marginal benefits of USM, forward-compatibility, and just plain looking professional, while amateurs want more range than either can offer. I want high-image-quality 24-105mm with image stabilization, and only Canon offers that. Same with 70-300mm. As long as they continue to offer unique products, Canon will continue to up the premium with each new generation. And we’ll continue to suck it up.

So when I find myself seriously contemplating laying down $700 for a consumer-quality lens (+ accessories) or $1400 for a pro lens (+ accessories), I stop and ask myself what I really want out of a lens. My ultimate criterion for lenses is not image quality, nor resale value, nor reliability, but how much enjoyment I’m going to get out of them. By that criterion, compact, easy-to-use, fisheyes, macros, and telephoto zooms should be the top of the heap, at least in initial satisfaction. But while the fisheye and macro are bound to end up in the closet after the novelty fades, the telephoto zoom has all kinds of uses. And the more pictures I take, the more I appreciate high contrast and bold colors from a high image quality lens. So that’s why I’m still thinking of these two lenses – because I’ll either not use or be unhappy with anything less.