Lenses make SUCH a difference. A family member asked me to shoot their wedding (no pressure, right?) and since without me it wouldn’t have happened, I agreed. I also rented some L glass for my SLRs, and holy shit was that eye-opening. Turns out that a $2000 lens is objectively better than a $300 lens, who knew?
The clarity, the sharpness, the pop - everything was improved. Good glass is a bigger difference than the body.
This is also introducing the difference between zoom lenses and prime lenses. You can get a good 28mm lens for much less cost than a good 24-70mm zoom lens. Most novices in photography don't start nowadays with good prime lenses, but with cheap zoom lenses.
Great! Inexpensive zoom lenses are getting better all the time. And manufacturing processes are likely also improving. The gap is narrowing.
But, at least today, you still get enhanced features on the more expensive zoom lens, such as wider aperture, and a constant maximum aperture across the entire zoom range. Neither of those things necessarily yields a superior photograph -- you don't need f2.8 across the whole zoom range if you're taking pictures at f6 -- but they can be very helpful. If they're worth paying for depends on one's personal needs, desires, and budget.
>A $300 lens is objectively better than a $5 smartphone lens.
Not sure where you are getting the $5 figure from. In any case, smartphone lenses are manufactured in vastly higher quantities than lenses for interchangeable lens cameras, so it doesn't make sense to compare the per unit cost. Modern smartphone lenses are miracles of optical engineering. See e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30557578 The cost of the R&D that's gone into enabling their design and manufacture probably couldn't have been recuperated if they were being used only in cameras.
Fair enough; perhaps it’s fair to say that given a specific application or lens type, a more expensive one will generally be better than a cheaper one. For example, you can get any prime or zoom you want from Canon as a normal or L variety. The latter will cost about 10x as much, and will be better. 10x better is subjective.
On the flip side, my favorite macro was a Sigma 105mm prime. Tack-sharp, and cost well under $1000. Of course, I’ve never shot with the equivalent Canon L (which isn’t quite the same at 100mm, but close).
* wider f-stop
* less chromatic aberration
* less distortion generally
* smaller circle of confusion
The chromatic aberration is an important but subtle effect. Remember that lenses are multiple pieces of glass, and every interface diffracts the wavelengths of light like a prism. One of the considerations in lens design is converging all those different wavelengths of light in the same place. Not just at one point, but at every point across the image plane.
Poor lenses might do the well in an area. Good lenses do it everywhere.
Sorry, should have clarified. The lens in particular that made me rethink everything else I had was a 70-200mm f/2.8L. Zooms in particular often suffer from sharpness and chromatic aberration issues compared to a prime due to the larger number of optics. This lens did not. I’m sure a comparable prime stuck next to it would still show it up, but coming from kit zoom lenses, it was quite a shocking difference.
The static aperture also helps tremendously of course, yes - nice bokeh with a tight zoom means you can easily get candid portraits that look great from anywhere in the room.
70-200 f2.8 L IS III is the Bentley of lenses, the Aston Martin, the Maybach, etc. you got the best hardware possible for the job. for the price it better be amazing! even the older ones without IS are excellent.
L glass is also a very interesting used market - those things basically don't lose value IME.
It was the IS II at the time, but yes - an absolutely spectacular piece of kit. I think it was about $100 to rent for the weekend? Very reasonable IMO, and made me realize that one could quite easily bootstrap a wedding photography business without actually owning gear.
Other than the actual business side of things, pesky details like getting clients. And the massive stress of shooting a wedding. I was happy to do it gratis for family, but I don’t think I’d want to deal with paying clients.
When I was still shooting Canon, I used a 70-200mm f/4L which I picked up for a song (C$~600 sixteen years ago?). Not the beauty of a 2.8, but having a consistent 4 made for some beautiful shots on Cape Breton.
Lenses affect color contrast too. I don't fully grasp it but internal reflections adding neutral white bias or correction tradeoffs between geometry and color or something. Aperture can be widened as much as lens barrel allows so that isn't it.
The clarity, the sharpness, the pop - everything was improved. Good glass is a bigger difference than the body.