I purchased the 5DIII with the 24-105 lens kit at the end of January and early February. With that addition, my primary kit became:
  • 24-105-General Purpose Zoom
  • 50 f/1.4-low light/full body portraits (usually shoot it f/2-f/2.8)
  • 100 f/2.8 L Macro--lower light--primary portrait lens
  • 100-400 L - Wildlife and travel lens


Honestly, it isn't a bad kit and it has worked pretty well for my needs. But my plan had been to take this year to get to know the kit and then look to upgrade for my more permanent FF kit.

While I have given this a lot of thought, I am interested in your help and thoughts on the best path to upgrade.

First, a bit about my photography needs. As you have probably seen from my posts, I like to shoot just about everything. Or at least it feels that way to me. I am usually using natural light, but plan on augmenting that with flashes more often. What I shoot breaks down to something like:
  • Family events-~25%
  • Dedicated "portraits"-~10% (usually friends or family)
  • Landscapes-~25%
  • Wildlife/BIF/etc-~25%
  • Misc-~15%


Family events are shot somewhat in a journalistic style. Landscapes, I tend to shoot a lot of horizons/mountains/hills/waterfalls but want to get into nightscapes. My current usage patterns, I see a lot of use at 24 mm, 100 mm (prime lens) and 400 mm. I see a good amount of use from 24-~50 and ~80-105mm. I should also note that when I shot on the 7D, I always had significant peaks at FF equivalent to 136 mm.

A few other characteristic I need to consider for my kit:
  • I sometimes target wildlife from land, but just as often, from my kayak.
  • I travel a fair amount both for work and vacation. And if I am listening to my wife, I should expect more. It seems that photography is my "thing" and I think travel is becoming hers. So, I want a good travel kit.
  • I prefer to not be changing lenses all of the time.
  • While I consider myself to be a hobbyiest/hacker photographer...my goals are to pretty ambitious in terms of the images I want to capture.
  • My goal is a good flexible kit, eventually consisting of 4-6 lenses.


So, if you've noticed, every time someone posts about a lens, I tend to pop up and talk about how I've been evaluating it too....that is because, well, I've pretty much have been looking at Canon's entire lineup. I have been considering primes, zooms and ultimately, a combination of primes and zooms.

So, please let me know if you have any thoughts or suggestions. For now, let's ignore budget . It will come back into play.

Thanks in advance...
Brant