If you are a photographer (everyone who takes photos is a photographer), you may start pondering on this question. And I don’t mean to ask “What was first?” kind of question, but “What is more important? Which piece of your equipment?”

You may immediately answer that the camera of course, but what about the lenses? Your camera is an important part of your equipment but not the most important. If you compare an entry-level camera to a mid-range camera, you’ll notice that there are some “new features” or improvements but nothing that major, at least not for most of photographers.

I have had a number of cameras in the past and they keep changing, however I keep camera bodies usually for at least two years or so. However, something that doesn’t change that often are lenses. I keep lenses for a long time because I buy good lenses. And when I say good lenses I don’t actually mean top-level professional lenses. Not really,  at least not for photography I do as a keen photographer with years of experience. Just to give you an idea about my photography, this is one of examples of my images:

So, back to lenses. Good quality lens may mean many different things to you. It starts with a question “Will you notice any difference in different lenses? If I were to show you two shots of the same scene taken with two different lenses, would you notice the difference?” if the answer is “No”, then don’t spend money on the lenses, buy the cheapest ones or use the one you got with your camera.

However, if you can appreciate the quality the lens produces, invest in a good lens. Spend some money and get a good quality lens. Another thing I would recommend is do some research. Don’t buy a lens (or a camera) without doing some research. I have used lenses from different manufacturers in the past and I need to say that I can hardly tell the difference in quality of images from high-end lenses and mid-range lenses (I wouldn’t buy any of the cheap lenses, I don’t recommend them). You can buy a very good mid-range lens (or a high-end lens from other manufacturer) for a very decent price and you get a high quality lens that will produce very high quality images.

So, what should I look for when buying a lens? We’ll talk about it in the next post.