Obsession with fast lenses

I’ve been back on Youtube once again watching countless photography related videos on everything, from which camera one should buy to the best way to save and store your precious images.  There are a plethora of ‘photographers’ or as they now refer to themselves ‘educators‘, offering advice and opinions and making a small fortune in the process.

One of the recurring topics seems to be the obsession with ultra fast lenses and woe is you if you do not have a collection of 1.2 glass in your camera bag. Well, that’s fine if you are sponsored for producing these content videos for your Youtube sites, but many photographers – and I’ll caveat that by saying amateurs and serious, and semi-professional photographers – will probably not be able to afford splashing out on these super fast lenses.

Camera manufacturers are derided when they fail to produce a 1.2 or 1.4 glass for their latest releases and I have to wonder, are these people living in the real world?  These vlogs are not aimed at the professional but everyone else, but as a professional, I watch these episodes – a newbie to this world – for the entertainment factor and with a certain degree of incredulity.

What the enthusiast must understand is that owning an ultra fast lens is not the be-all and end-all of achieving photographic greatness or mastery of the dark arts.  I’ve said it in a previous post, but mastering what you already own as well as the use of image processing software is far more important than saving up for the latest, fastest, greatest lens or whatever bit of kit these vloggers are pushing.

Its laughable, when I see some vlogger haranguing some manufacturer because they haven’t released this or that. Who cares? Why is it so important? It really isn’t and at times, you have to question is this video just to create content? Photographers should not be caught up in this never ending spiral of trying to keep up with the latest bit of tech. It will not make you a better photographer.