Writers, after finishing a manuscript, are told to stick it in a drawer for 6 months and ignore it, so that when they do finally pull it out, they can review it with fresh eyes. It’s a good practice, and one that I’m going to start applying to the reviews I do here. You’ll find that many of my past equipment articles now have a section at the bottom: After further reflection.
You’re not likely to find me doing a complete 180-degree flip (although I suppose it’s possible). But what you can expect is a second, more seasoned opinion. It’s all too easy to be enamored with a lens right out of the box, only to grow disappointed with it later. Or, conversely, to poorly rank a feature that you later decide is useful after all. Hindsight is 20/20.
I’ve decided to include this for the same reason that I do the reviews in the first place – so that hopefully someone else can benefit from my experiences, good and bad. Hopefully you find it useful!
Below is a partial list of reviews that I’ve updated:
Brent Pennington is a professional photographer and the driving force behind The Roving Photographer. When he’s not working with commercial or portraiture clients, he’s usually out in the field pursuing nature and wildlife shots.
I think it’s great that you’re doing this and I’m going to borrow the idea
After reading through your reviews and followups:
Canon 50mm – keep the 1.8 Mk I. I have the 1.4 and it is soft wide open so I normally use 1.8 or higher but I do like that it has USM focusing motor and a much wider focusing ring than the 1.8 Mk II lens has.
Canon 70-210 – I’m just not a fan of push/pull zooms and I already have the 70-200 f/4.
Canon 28-135 – got one of these when I bought the 40D. I never really cared for it much so I sold it on eBay. For a general purpose walk around lens I’m finding either the Quantaray (re-badged Sigma) 18-200 or EF-S 55-250 work well.
Sigma 120-500 – I’m getting tempted by Sigma lenses especially when you look at the price difference between the Sigma 500 ($4700) to the Canon 500 ($6140). For the $1400 difference I could buy the Sigma and Canon 300 f/4 IS. Part of my problem is I’m a Canon snob. I know it and have the believe, perhaps foolishly so, that Canon lenses will work better than any 3rd party lens.
Sigma 70-200 – I’ve used my Canon 70-200 f/4 with the Canon 1.4x and 2X extenders and it works well enough for me. I do wish it would autofocus with the 2X but it won’t on the 7D and I don’t think that one “flaw” in the 7D could be jusitfication to move up to a 1D series camera. While I may think that’s sufficient justification to move up to a 1D series body it isn’t for Mrs. Jones
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Powershot SX120 – I really want a nice ultra small P&S camera (with RAW capability) that I can carry everywhere. Unfortunately that doesn’t seem to exist yet.
Glad you like the idea! Regarding a small P&S, you should check out the S90. It shoots RAW, has a fast f/2 lens, and from my understanding, is pretty small – smaller than the G series, at least.
The S90 looks like it’ll work. I’ll have to check one out the next time I’m at Best Buy. Thanks for the tip, Brent!