So, Whatever Happened to That Kit Lens Challenge??

For those who might be wondering whatever happened with my Kit Lens Challenge, the answer is that I got a bit lazy, and a bit busy.  I did have another paid shoot (a wedding), but I brought nearly the entire arsenal of gear for that event, so I left the XTi behind.  A pity, because it would have been fun to use.  However, just after that wedding, Hanna, Isaac, and I headed down to the coast for a quick beach fix, and I brought along the XTi and the kit lens, and ended up using them a good bit.  Some of my favorite photos of the trip were taken with this “terrible” lens (including all the photos in this blog entry).

You might argue, “well sure, Mark, of course these are fine because they’re in midday light and you could stop down the lens and have shutter speed to spare!”  To which I reply, “so what?”  I call that taking advantage of the situation!  And, since we were down on the beach on a blustery fall day, I only had to risk scratching the front element of a $43 lens when I cleaned it, rather than a $1400 lens.  I call that prudence.

For the 5D, I only brought along my 35 f/1.4 and 135 f/2.0 lenses, and figured that I’d use the XTi in any of the gaps–it could go wider (~28mm equivalent), and long enough that I could shoot some impromptu portraits if the 135 wasn’t practical.  Did I get some very nice photos with the 5D and L primes?  Sure.  Were those lenses better when I was light-limited in a dark aquarium?  Of course.  Does that mean the kit lens is useless?  I know, I sound like a broken record here.

On a somewhat unrelated note, I also chose to shoot everything from those two days in JPEG, rather than my usual RAW.  I did this primarily because editing photos on my laptop is an exercise in frustration as I use it in vary light levels and at varying screen brightness–shooting JPEGs does most of the processing for you, in camera, and then you can just tweak the results.  I also did it just for fun–just because I wanted to.  Sometimes you need to do that–not shoot JPEG, but just have fun with your shooting.  These photos were all shot with the “Standard” Canon picture style, and processed pretty minimally in Adobe Lightroom.

Anyway, this post wasn’t intended as an essay on creativity or another treatise on the value of the kit lens–I just wanted to let you know what I was up to, and that I haven’t dropped the ball or gotten totally bored with the kit lens.  To the contrary, I’m enjoying the XTi very much and will have a hard time sending it back to its owner.