I recently started shooting professionally and bumped up against the limits of some of my gear (insert shameless promotion of professional self here). In particular, lenses and lighting. This led to taking a step back to think about building the right lens portfolio over time. At first I was feverish to buy the Canon "L" series of professional lenses. After careful research and smart shopping I discovered I could buy a complete set of lenses for the same cost as a single "L" lens, about $1500 (see Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM). Granted, there are compromises. If your primary source of income is photography such compromise may not be acceptable. But for myself, I decided the trade offs are worth it. Read on and decide for yourself.

I currently have the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 and Sigma 18-200mm f/3.5-6.3 DC OS. The Canon 50mm is bright with good image quality but for portraits I need some zoom and the focal length is a little too close for indoor shots and street photography. The Sigma 18-200mm is versatile but not very bright and in some circumstances the image quality could be better (especially wide open at 18mm with f/3.5 or 200mm with f/6.3). Both lenses could benefit from faster auto focus, especially in low light.

The goal is to build a set of four lenses to provide the right tool for the job in the circumstances most photographers will find themselves: a "true" 50mm prime, wide angle, standard zoom and telephoto. Macro, super telephoto, fisheye, tilt shift or other specialized lenses are left out.

I rounded up four or five lenses in each category and set about careful comparison. To select the lenses I set some basic criteria then looked at the lens lineups from Canon, Tamron, Sigma and Tokina. If you shoot with another camera system substitute Canon with the the brand of your choice. And please share your results!

If you are not yet ready to invest in a portfolio of lenses try something like the Sigma 18-200mm. I have used it for over two years and it is a tremendous learning tool. These so called "superzooms" allow access to everything from wide angle to telephoto all in one package and are fantastic for travel. Sigma recently released the even more impressive Sigma 18-250mm f/3.5-6.3 DC OS HSM. This version adds another 50mm on the long end and HSM, their speedy and silent auto focus system. If you aren't ready to spend $1500 for a set of lenses, one of these lenses gets you much of what the whole kit offers for about one third the price.

As for the rest of this series, Part 2 will cover prime lenses, Part 3 the wide angle lineup, Part 4 the standard zooms and part 5 the telephoto lenses. I hope this series will save some of you from having to do all the research and comparison shopping yourself. It was a lot of work!

This Shot

Good equipment is important, but not sufficient. This shot was taken in Brazil with a 2.0 megapixel Canon Powershot A20 and is still one of my favorites.