DSLR Snobbery and Buying Third-Party Camera Lenses
I have mentioned it a couple of times, I am shopping to fill the gaps in my lense collection. This means wading through review after review and while fun most of the time, one side effect is I am getting sick of the absolute rot written about lenses in forums.
The majority of the rubbish I read is FUD, that is Fear Uncertainty and Doubt. It is one thing to criticise a lense you own or have owned, it is quite another to dismiss an entire manufacturers line based on “stories I have heard”. The very worst of examples of these myths was “I hear brand-x screws up cameras”.
There is already enough uncertainty in buying lenses as it is. Will you get a good copy? Am I buying the right lense for me? Should I spend the additional $x to get a better aperture? Would I rather have IS or is low light performance more important? Etc etc. For people to rumour-monger is just irresponsible.
I think a large part of this is two reasons:
- Snobbery. Probably the biggest reason. In order Canon people seem to go
- The L-series Myth; the idea that any lense without a red stripe is not worth bothering with
- Canon should have made this lense an ‘L’ but won’t for marketing reasons
- Don’t buy that lense, it’s for consumers (as if being a consumer is a dirty word)
- I never buy third-party
- Post-justification; lenses tend to be expensive purchases and a large part of the forum participating cohort are enthusiasts rather than having a company equipment budget or free samples so tend to either bash or boost lenses they own.
While I haven’t had that wide an experience of lenses I have to believe that neither Nikon nor Canon make “bad” lenses. Further to that I believe Sigma and Tamron also make damn good lenses, some of their range amongst the best you can buy. Now that is not to say that if you spend only £99 on a lense it is going to meet the daily demands of a professional fine art photographer, but the other side of the coin if you are a middling photographer at best, do you really need £1200 worth of glass on your camera?
What do you get for your top-end lense purchase?
- Build quality; probably the main justification, they need to stand the knocks of professional use, do you need a lense that is built like a tonka?
- Weather sealing; consumer level DSLR cameras are not weather sealed, if it’s raining you really ought not be taking photographs at all
- Fast apertures; not exclusive to top-end lenses at all
- Optical Performance/Sharpness; not exclusive to top-end lenses but they do tend to perform better
- USM (or equiv); this usually means full time manual, quiet and fast focusing. Can you live without it? Unless you need to photograph in court or need to hunt wildlife, most people can live with slower focussing providing you still get accuracy.
- Am I missing anything? ….
- Oh, biggest reason; Pride and bragging rights
As I say, if you are professional then it is probably worth the investment in top of range lenses, they will pay their cost back and are tax-deductible. If not it is still worth buying the best you can afford without being stupid. Many experts maintain that after ability it is the quality of your lenses that make the difference in shots. It’s just plain daft to be persuaded by brand-prejudice or lense snobbery.
Do listen to people who actually have long-term experience of the lense you are looking at, particularly the professional impartial reviews (be very wary of reviews pushing a purchase, they are probably advertorials). Many forum type reviews tend to be “I don’t like this lense based on my 5 minute experience” or “I have never used this lense but ..” or most annoying, “my copy was obviously faulty, I didn’t get it repaired I sold it to some sucker on eBay and now go around slagging of brand-x to anyone who will listen”. I find one useful measure of a reviews voracity is if they are willing to show full crop images with exif taken with their copy of the lense, another plus in Flickrs favour.
I haven’t made my mind up what my next lense will be, it could be a Canon 24-105L, it might be a 24-70L, but could just as easily be two Sigmas for the same price as one of the former (probably 18-50 f/2.8 and 24-70 f/2.8). Just like I would like to own a top-marque sports car even though I don’t need one of course I am lusting after the top-line L lenses and am damn sure I will end up owning at least one (or four …) practical or not but that will be my decision, I like to buy the best I can. I won’t listen to how stupid I am being and most importantly I hope I never stoop to dismissing another’s lense choice because of it.
Am I wrong? Let me know what you think, perhaps I am just being grumpy today …
Technorati Tags: canom, nikon, nikkor, sigma, tamron, lenses, dslr, camera, photography, reviews
No, you’re not wrong. The key for any lens purchase is to do your research. I would argue that making a general statement like “Canon L glass is better than Sigma glass” isn’t inherently bad, but it’s an overly general statement. Canon has made some bad lenses from time to time, and Sigma has made some good lenses from time to time. I know many people who are VERY happy with Sigma’s EX line, for example. The key is to do your research, talk to people who have actually USED the lens (not just read the specs), and make your purchase decision based on real word data, rather than a brand name.
The reason to buy a Nikon or Canon DSLR is because you have an implicit committment from the company to continue to support the lenses you buy from them for that body. Thus, if you buy Nikon DX series lenses, you have a lot of confidence that a quality body will continue to exist for that lens. The same for Canon’s lenses. This is not so much snobbery as trusting in the brand to be good to its reputation.
While there are better and worse lenses from any company, Canon and Nikon are top providers, and any lens you buy from them a good bet to be a good to great lens. I’m a Nikonian myself, but there are lenses I am happier and less happy with. I am sure that is true for Canon owners too.
I can see Sigma or Tamron lenses filling a niche in my holding, but not being a principal lens I shoot with. There are too many years down the road to worry about compatibility issues. Will it work well with the next generation of Speedlight? Who knows. I’m not going to risk it though.
Future compatibility is an interesting one, it’s kind of like the full frame vs digital decision, should you not buy a lense today for your current camera because of something that may or may not be a problem in future?
I definitely see an upgrade in my future, but not for a year or so and lenses keep their value surprisingly well.
The singular of “Lenses” is “Lens”, not “Lense”. Sorry, it’s a common mistake and a pet peeve of mine.
I own three lenses and a canon 30D (previously a 10D). My most recent acquisition was a 17-40L, which is wonderful insomuch as I get nice, sharp images and wide angles I haven’t seen since I last picked up a film slr.
The line of snobbery has to do with how and why you post positive/negative reviews to forums. There are and will always be equipment fetishists out there, arguing the merits of the Canon xx-yy VS Sigma xx-yy, but in the end, the general rule is that lenses are stratified into “quality groups” roughly by price. You know if you are buying a $1000 lens, you should expect a certain featureset and performance and build quality.
What is different nowadays, with the internet, is that people can get into the minutae of this $1K lens feature group vs brand X’s lineup, et al, in a much more immediate timeframe. Back and forth about bokeh on this lens versus that one, etc. One day somebody will start the “ultimate lens review site”, one big table replete with links to mtf charts, grading of bokeh, and build quality, with columns for “this lens has bad copy syndrome”, etc. Since there is no such definitive resource right now (well, maybe photozone), you can see arguments ad nauseum about the smallest things.
Sure, some people buy for bragging rights. Some have concerns about whether it is good for the kinds of image-making they want to do. Some just want to know if Canon used an army of badly-trained chimpanzees to build lens Y, and whether it will spend the first year in and out of Canon’s service facilities. The curse of more available information is that people will want to know, and others will want to share. Like everything in life, some share information and some share brags and some are informed and some are well-meaning, and it’s up to the reader to distinguish between the various groups. I am more than willing to sort through some snobbism to have access to the wealth of non-corporate-spin reviews and hands-on experiences that forums provide.
I too am still willing to read forums, I do find it fun snobbery and sniping or no :O)
Thanks for correcting me re: lense vs lens! I promise from this point forward to *try* to remember which is correct