Well that certainly is four prime areas of photography.
Where does Sports fit in? Lets say that I have a son or daughter in sports and maybe they are really into sports. I might need a lens for basketball, played indoors in a gymnasium, and maybe another lens entirely for football or baseball, played outdoors in the sunlight. But what if the baseball is played during the day, and the football is always played at night? Yikes I need another lens. One of my daughters played softball and volleyball. For softball I would want at least two lenses; one when she was close to me like at the plate, and one when she was out in the field. Volley ball was indoors so there is lens number three.
I’m into wildlife and nature. I would like a nice Macro for close-up shots of insects and maybe small flowers. A lens to take close-ups of flowers and larger insects, lizards, snakes etc. Haven’t really decided yet on the lenses, but we are looking at least two. I also have a passion for birds, now bird pictures fall into roosting birds, those sitting on a branch or something and BIFs (Birds In Flight). Sometimes you need a really long lens, maybe 500mm, even 600mm to get a good bird sitting some distance away, BIFs look fantastic, but you need a very fast focusing lens to keep the bird in focus, and BIFs generally aren’t as far away, although something like a soaring hawk might be. I could easily justify a 70-200mm f/2.8 VR, a 300mm f/4 with both a TC-14E and a TC-17E, and a 600mm f/4. We are definitely talking “money is no object here”.
San Diego is a beautiful place with many historic places and beautiful vistas, and lets not forget the seashore. For Landscapes I would want something wide and sharp like a 14mm or 16mm prime, but if I’m closer to the subject, like one of the Missions or the Star of India (a 150 year old sailing vessel), I’d probably want something like a 17-55mm.
I use my 50mm f/1.8 for a lot of different things, but if I wanted to do portraits I think I would want the 85mm f/1.8.
Then there are things I’m not into at the moment (but who knows when the bug will bite) like Night Photography, Cars, Motorcycles, & Boats (Static and moving), Trains, Planes (both on the ground and in the air), Infrared, Street People, Still Life, Underwater, Stage & Concert.
So I could easily, right now, justify 9 lenses and a couple of TCs and probably a couple of CP filters, that would go to 13 lenses if my Daughter was still playing sports.
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Brooks
http://www.bmiddleton.smugmug.com
I daresay one profits more by the mistakes one makes off one's own bat than by doing the right thing on somebody's else advice.
— W. Somerset Maugham
For what I like to shoot 28-70 is more useful than 17-55. This long list was only meant as an "ULTIMATE" collection of lenses.
