The Age Old Question: Which Lens Should I Buy?

There must be some kind of spending fever in the air because there have been several comments on the blog lately about which lenses I recommend, and whether to get one lens over another.  (Mind you, this is probably the most asked question on the blog at any time)  I know exactly what you are going through - I had such a hard time narrowing it down to the lenses I finally went for!

The question of which lens to get is such a difficult question to answer as there is usually a lot of variables involved: whether you are on a cropped frame or full frame camera, whether you intend to upgrade to full frame, what type of pictures you like to take, the age of your children (assuming that's your main subjects) what your shooting style is, and probably most importantly, what your budget is.  Even knowing all these factors there are likely to be a number of lenses that might suit you - narrowing it down to just one can be tricky!



So, I'm not actually going to be able to answer the question of which lens you should buy (despite leading you on with the blog title!) but what I do want to do is try to help you to narrow down the myriad of options out there and find the best lens for you.  In the New Year, I will writing a series of blog posts dedicated to this very subject.  I'll be writing ones reviewing some specific lenses (my type of review - short, completely non-technical and non-scientific!) and comparing them for things like focal length, sharpness and focus, and seeing if my relatively untrained eyes are able to tell the difference!   I'll also write some posts on what to consider when looking to add to your lens collection, what to look out for, and make some lens suggestions for the different types of photography,  budgets and cameras out there.

If you have any queries about lens choices please feel free to drop me a line using the contact form - I won't answer directly (lens choices can actually be quite time consuming!) but it will help shape what goes into the blog posts as I see what people are interested in.  I might also answer a couple of these in full in a blog post - perhaps like an Agony Aunt column but for lens choices!  (That might be a good idea actually!)

So, if you are in the market for a new lens in 2013, I hope I can be of some help to you! (And it gives me an excuse for buying more lenses that I probably should have....)