For a long time I thought a good walk-around lens is a lens with a large focal range in order to be prepared for all kinds of situations. Because I didn't want to sacrifice image quality I started to carry around the super heavy and bulky Canon 24-70 mm 2.8 from Canon. Now I decided I don't want to carry much gear anymore and keep my photography simple. Here are the obvious things I observed:
- As more gear you carry as a bigger deal it becomes taking it with you.
- As bigger the deal becomes as rarer are you bringing it with you.
- As less you have it with you as more opportunities for good photos you miss.
Instead of bringing a backpack full of glass everywhere, I decided to get myself a Sigma 30mm 1.4 lens and leave all the other glass at home, ha! Fact is, if you want to shoot situations, you cannot waste time with zooming anyway. You probably want to frame them in the way you are seeing them right at that moment. 30 mm on a APS-C sized sensor makes 48 cm, so here we go. Thanks to Mr. Beckerman for bringing my attention to this lens.
I also found a nice inconspicuous photo bag which can be worn over the shoulder or as belt-bag. I did a long Google image-search for such a - not necessarily photo - bag and ended up on the B&H website...how funny. It seems that the two main groups concerned about bags are females and photographers. Here is a link to the bag. In there should be enough space for the camera, the 30mm lens, and an ultra-wide-angle, which I mostly use for architecture and HDR stuff. I'm thinking about doing some long-term traveling next year, so this is some kind of preliminary adjustments towards going light and easy.
Back to the lens. I took it for a walk on South Street (in Philly) last Sunday. About the colors: I'm a compulsive image tweaker, thanks for indulging me :-)
