Hi All,


after rapidly buying 2 cameras and 5 lenses (of which 1 camera and 4 lenses remain), there were a couple of months without buying anything ... well, except for the pair of D-lites ;-) ... but I'm now afflicted by another wave of L-fever, and it's getting stronger by the day!


Now, I don't expect that anybody here can tell me what the right solution for me is, everybody has to choose for themselves, including me, but I'm making this post anyhow, because I hope that it'll help me bring some order into my thoughts, because somebody might make some helpful comment on their experience with a similar lens kit, and because I just need somebody to "listen" that will understand what I'm talking about ;-)


Currently I have the 85 f/1.8, 50 f/1.8 II, 24-70 and 70-200 f/4 IS. Now, which problems am I trying to solve?


Some unanticipated negative effects of the 500D to 5D2 transition, whereby I lost my crop factor ... although, in total, there were of course more positive effects.


The 85 f/1.8 was really good for portraits and quite useful for some more candid "longer range" indoor non-flash use on the 500D; now on the 5D2 I need to cover the same equivalent focal length of 135mm with the 70-200, which has quite an aperture disadvantage; even if I compensate for the sensor sizes, it's still about a stop slower.


So I'm thinking about (a) getting a 135 f/2, (b) "exchanging" the 70-200 f/4 IS for a 70-200 f/2.8 II IS, or (c) getting a 135 f/2 and exchanging the 70-200 f/4 IS for a 70-300 L (this would give me back my fast 135mm, and (nearly) give me back the reach that the 70-200 had on the 500D, although the zoom would then nearly be disqualified for indoor use), or (d) keeping the 70-200 f/4 IS, and getting a 135 f/2 for more light indoors and a 100-400 for more reach outdoors; haven't dared to calculate the prices of these options yet...


How do people with a 70-200 f/4 IS or f/2.8 II IS feel about the IS in the 100-400, isn't it a bit disappointing in comparison to the newer lenses?


Further, the 50 f/1.8 isn't bad on the 5D2 (after getting the 85 I rarely used it on the 500D), although it's sometimes still a bit long, and the AF can be a real pain, so I'll probably end up with either a 35L or a 50L; I'm leaning slightly towards the 35L, but would feel stupid if some time further down the road I'd see that a 24L plus 50L would be better; I can't quite imagine 24+35 or 35+50.


If I get the 35L, rather than the 50L, I'd have a very fast 35 and a quite fast 50, so I could exchange the 24-70 for a 24-105 IS because I'd use the primes for all non-staged non-flashed indoor shots which were a main reason to choose the f/2.8 zoom over the f/4, but gain more focal length range for home-studio and general walk-around use (if I don't end up walking around with the 35L, that is).


How is the f/1.4 or f/1.2 manageable in practice for non-staged shots, given that focus-and-recompose is impossible at those apertures, and the 5D2 has very few AF points, of which only one is really "good", and that MF with 10x live-view would take too much time?


That's quite some possibilities, even without touching the 100 macro, which I could get for photo-hiking where there's always something interesting that's too small for the 24-70's MM of 0.29, or the 17-40 which I might consider next summer if the 24 suddenly feels not wide enough for landscapes and similar.


In light of all this, I'm now tempted to first get a LensBaby Composer with FishEye and SoftFocus, have some fun, and forget about the whole subject for another couple of months ;-)


Thanks for bearing with me, Colin