Stephanie asks:

“Hi Clayton, I’m sorry to bother you as I am sure that you get tons of emails from newbies like myself asking for advice and such but I thought I would give it a try anyway. I really enjoyed your post last week about your post-processing techniques  and am really looking forward to more of those in the future. And like everyone else I am waiting patiently for you to begin selling your beautiful photoshop actions. But my question is more about gear as I am looking to invest in a good “go-to” lens and I was hoping for some suggestions. What is one lens that you just couldn’t live without?”
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Hi Stephanie!

 And yes I do get frequent emails and as much as I wish I could find the time to answer them all individually, I am hoping to knock off a few birds with one stone here.  I would say that you are definitely on the right track as your glass is the absolute most important investment one can make as a photographer. I would even go so far as to say that the glass is even more important than the camera body itself. I learned this the hard way but that is a whole other post. As far as the one lens I couldn’t live without goes, well, that’s a difficult question because my “go-to” lens is not necessarily my favorite lens. For instance the most important lens in my bag is my 50mm f/1.2. Because I like to use as much available light as possible I can always open that baby wide up if I need to. In fact, with a smaller bridal party (4 on each side) I could easily shoot an entire wedding with just this one lens if I needed to. Of course with its amazingly wide aperture comes a down side. As with Canon in general there is a real inconsistency with autofocus, even if I was absolutely sure I had locked on. If you are not planning to shoot wide open than the 50mm f/1.4 is a quarter of the price and is still a magnificent lens. But as I mentioned before, as much I depend on the 50mm, it is not my “favorite” lens by any means. That would be the Tilt-Shift f/2.8. In fact my TS is permanently attached to one of my bodies and seldom moves from there. Not only is it multi functional but with a little practice is tack sharp. The creative possibilities are truly endless. Unfortunately this too comes with a slight down side. All of Canon’s TS lenses are manual focus and manual focus at a wide aperture setting is easy to miss with the standard focusing screens on most of Canon’s current DSLRs. And thankfully the Canon TS-E 45mm f/2.8 Tilt-Shift Lens has minimal flare-resistance. Loves. it.
Typically the TS lens is used strictly for selective focus which is used to direct the viewer’s attention to a small part of the image while de-emphasizing other parts. This is known as Tilt and is the result of changing the lens’ plane of focus but that too is an entirely different post.  Occasionally you may also Shift the lens which is primarily used to photograph tall buildings while keeping the sides of the building parallel. For those who may not be able to afford this particular lens there are ways to imitate its effects in photoshop though once you begin using the real thing, the fake action has an odd way of making your left eye twitch. So please avoid faking the funk when at all possible! For a full list of my gear please check out my For Photographers section here on my blog. Any other suggestions for a favorite “go-to” lens??