Struggling between RF USM and STM lineup as an amateur

sercheese wrote:

Thank you for all your insightful answers! Few more things to consider. I imagine I would like to take beatiful photos as the Profis, but the reality is that not each picture has to have a blurred background. Maybe those suggestions with more flexibility are right. I can see me sitting on a sofa with my wife, so very close, wanting to take a picture of her with the child. And not want to go to the opposite site of the room to make those cool photos (sometimes, yes!). We live alone, so all the responsibility will be only on us two. On one side, some light STM lenses like RF 35 would be great, on the other site, as someone mentioned, the situation can change rapidly (especially when the kid will start to move around), giving no time to swap the lens. I have no d500 anymore as I run over it with my car 🙈 The insurence paid for everything so I can start new. I've rented the R6 once for 2 weeks. As we visited our family for 1 week I took a lot of pictures, some art style portrait of a 4 years old, others just the funny moments while playing together. The 2nd week I took none pictures as we came back home, the weather was awful and my wife moody. I found that those pictures with blur where seen as beatiful for the family members. The other one where like from a smartphone. So also beatiful, but IQ nothing special. I indeed want to change my phone after 5 years. And my wife roll her eyes while I'm talking about the new camera. She's no tech freak. So maybe the camera should be sometimes light for those situation when she uses it. It could be heavier for me indoor or near home. And again light for traveling. I ask one more time, are photos taken with STM lenses of worse IQ than those taken with i.ex. RF 24-70?

A couple of things.

First, you may find that with a new child you have a lot of stuff that goes with the kid. A LOT. Baby bags are large for a reason. A big ol' camera and lens may not get as much use as you think. Might want to wait a beat.

Second, rent the lens. Maybe use lensrentals.com's rent to buy option. Remember lenses generally aren't at their best wide open. And as you've noted minimum focus distance matters; a cool thing about so many RF lenses is that they are semi macro. Although beware some distortions if doing portraits.

I often see no difference between USM vs STM in real life, or even with much older screw  focus lenses. Some USM lenses are better for other reasons of course. But there's a lot that goes into whether one likes the look a lens produces, which is why some of us use old adapted lenses for example. Crunchy sharp isn't always what we're after. So again, try some and see what you like.