New Glass

After it became apparent that my purchase of an SLR was evolving from a camera upgrade into a new hobby, thoughts of new glass quickly began to form.

At first I was thinking of investing in a better "walk around" lens, generally defined as a lens with a focal length range similar to that of a point and shoot camera. My Rebel XS came with the 18-55mm kit lens, giving me a 3x zoom range and I figured a higher quality lens that covered that same range and then some was a logical choice, so I was looking at the 17-85mm and the 28-135mm.

However, I've also been coming to the realization that my gadget lust would quickly steer me toward getting a better body. I bought the Rebel XS because it was the cheapest Canon SLR on the market in case the shutter bug never bit me too hard. Now that that bite has covered me in a bright red rash (metaphorically speaking), my standards have heightened a bit. Plus, I'm sick of switching between my camera and camcorder to cover both bases, so something that shoots high-def video is very appealing.

The new body purchase will have to wait a little while, but the reason why this makes buying a new walk around lens less appealing is that the ones I'm interested in can be purchased for $200 as a kit with a new body, and they sell for about $400 on their own.

So I thought about what other types of lenses made the most sense for me. One of my most recent disappointments was the number of shots I threw away from Kyla's birthday party. Many of my shots were blurry due to my hesitation to use flash or high ISO settings (I eventually used both, so I did get a lot of pics from the latter half of the event).

After some research I came to the conclusion that I would get the most bang for my buck from a "fast" (large aperture) prime lens (one that doesn't zoom). Before I really educated myself about photography, I couldn't fathom why anyone would want a lens with a fixed focal-length, but now I understand how a wide aperture allows you to use faster shutter speeds in low light, which is where I needed the most help.

Now I focused in on (pun intended) a 50mm f/1.4 prime, and after flirting with Sigma's version, I went with Canon's model (the Sigma is overall a better lens, but I read a number of complaints about auto-focusing problems). In an unusual move for me, I bought the lens from a local store, whose price was lower than what I found online.

So far I've only really used my new glass at Kyla's soccer practice, which isn't really it's specialty, but I was able to shoot at ISO 100 at high shutter speeds to reduce the grain. I'm anxious for Halloween to really see what it can do.