If you ask any professional photographer what you should spend your money on when it comes to buying photography equipment, almost all will tell you to buy the best glass you can afford. Glass is just fancy photographer speak for lenses. All the other accessories and even your camera body you will probably replace every couple of years but if you invest in good glass it will serve you well for many years to come.
Heeding this advice, I have begun to build my collection of good glass. I've chosen to go with Canon which means I'll be sticking with Canon bodies for the foreseeable future as you cannot use Canon lenses with a different body (i.e. Nikon). In my collection I have the following 6 Canon lenses and one Tamron lens in order of price from most expensive to the least expensive.
16-35mm f/2.8 L II USM
This is a great wide-angle lens that I just recently purchased so I haven't got a great deal of shooting time in with it yet. It's a nice fast lens and it's also very light. I had the option of going with the cheaper EF-S 10-22mm f3.5 but in the end I decided to give up a bit of a wider angle in favor of a faster lens that could be used on a full-frame sensor if I ever upgrade my body to a 5D or 1DS Mark III.
24-70mm f/2.8 L USM
This is a great multi-purpose lens but I primarily use it for portrait and landscape work. This is a fast, sharp lens which performs particularly well around f5.6. It's a little on the heavy side but it produces some great results even in low light conditions. I purchased this when I upgraded to the 40D so I'm still experimenting with this lens and finding out when it's best used.
70-200mm f/2.8
This is probably my favorite lens that I've purchased so far. It produces great depth of field so I really enjoy using it for portrait shots and catching intimate moments from afar. I've used it to cover sports photography, weddings, travel, and event photography. I also have the 1.4X tele-convertor which extends the range of this lens which is handy when you need to get in that little bit closer to your subject.
Tamron 18-200mm f/3.5-6.3
This mid-range lens is a great multi-purpose lens for the photographer on the go who wants the greatest flexibility in range without having to carry several lenses with them. I bought this lens a couple of years ago and use it quite often when I'm traveling and don't want to bring my heavier lenses with me. It's great in outdoor settings with good lighting but it's not the best choice if I'm going to be in low-light conditions. It's definitely slower and noisier than my other Canon lenses and the auto-focusing system sometimes takes awhile to lock in on the subject I'm trying to photograph.
75-300mm f/4-5.6
Besides the 18-55mm kit lens that came with my Rebel XT, this was the first lens I purchased. At only $300 it's a very inexpensive lens which is great for zooming in on far away subjects or for creating a great DOF for portraits, etc. Unfortunately once I purchased the 70-200 f/2.8, this lens rarely makes it's way out of my bag these days and will most likely be sold off to any interested buyers who are looking for a like-new inexpensive telephoto lens.
18-55mm EF-S
This was the basic kit lens that came with my Rebel XT. I used it for quite sometime until I purchased the Tamron 18-200mm lens. Since then it has sat in my bag alongside my 75-300mm and will most likely wind up in the items for sale pile shortly.
50mm f/1.8
At only $100 this little wonder is fantastic in low light conditions thanks to a nice wide aperture. It is also a great portrait lens producing some tack sharp images - sometimes sharper than my much more expensive 24-70mm. It's small and light-weight so I don't mind throwing this one in the bag and pulling it out when I need it. Being that it's a fixed focal length, it's not the best lens to use in situations where the distance between you and your subjects is changing quickly and you need to get the shot. Having said that, I use it often so I am looking to upgrade to the faster 50mm f/1.4 which is still only around $380 which I think will give me good value for the money.
I'm curious to know what lenses you use and if there are any missing from my collection that you think I should have.
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