Lens upgrade needed?

Rakshit Tirumala wrote:

Hello all,

I have a Canon 550D (T2i) with the two basic kit lenses (18-55 and 55-250) for the past two years. Before that I shot with an Olympus E520 for 2 years. Just to tell you that I'm not completely "new". Let me also NOT say - "I want a lens upgrade". Mainly because I don't have boat loads of money. That being said, I want to ask if you think "I need an upgrade".

I mostly do travel landscape (and architecture) photography. Some street photography. Some in-house creative photography with household light bulbs. (you can see my photostream here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/calvinkid86/).

While I feel like I've improved in the the past years, I still get the feeling that there is a lack of crispness in my landscape photos (the ones that I'm most concerned with). I am comparing with high end photos from some sites like National Geographic where the image really captures your eye. Even if the landscape is similar.

There are many reasons for this.

1. Lighting: High end pro-photographers have the luxury to choose their time of the day. I base mine on the best possible train and bus timings.

2. I make some mistakes - wrong focusing, wrong settings, etc.

3. Lens and Camera quality. The points I am concerned of here are colour contrast and the "punchy" feeling of the colours - greens and reds mostly.

The following two photos were taken on a recent trip to Mont Blanc and the surrounding Alps. The time of the day was about 11 AM, not sunrise, but the sun was just peaking over the mountains, so "pseudo sunrise". Figure 1 was decent, though not GREAT. The blue skies, while somewhat present, were enhanced in post-proc. Figure 2 was also nice, but not up to the mark. Mainly the browns seem blurry, noisy and grainy. Contrast enhanced in post-proc with shadows a little brightened (not too much). These two were shot around F/8-F/13 (ISO 100) so maybe dispersion?

This next photo was taken on a cloudy day visit to Manarola, Italy. Again, lacks a bit of punch, but I agree that bad lighting is a huuuge factor in this. The problem for me in this photo is the lack of sharpness, mainly in the left half mountain/greenery region.

So I wanted to know if a lens-upgrade will improve my image quality. I looked up the decent replacements for my 18-55 and they are the following.

Canon 17-55 - about 800 euros. But said to be a near L-quality lens.

Tamrom 17-50 and Sigma 17-50 - both about 400 euros. Said to be decent.

Do you think the upgrade to Tamron or Sigma would help? Or is it better to wait till I can afford it and switch to a full frame sensor (will be a couple of years )

I don't think these would improve much over your current lens. The 17-55 f2.8 might do a bit better, but don't expect a quantum leap.

the first shot seems fine, the second as well - it's taken in a very difficult situation against light, so looks actually really good. In the third shot you have the trees against the white sky, giving some purple fringing, which you might be able to reduce in postprocessing. However, to me what was most annoying in the picture was that it's not straight...

A lot of popping images in NG etc., as you say, get the light right, do good postprocessing, and if it's a real high resolution picture, they may have used a FF or larger format camera.

edit, after reading the whole thread, I see you already do postprocessing and noticed the CA.

Thanks and any critique on my photos will also be appreciated. Flickr photostream goes from most recent to 4 years ago.

-Rakshit