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Help! I'm looking for some advice on customizing the lenses I carry for nightclub work. I'm a hobbyist photographer with mid-grade gear. Occasionally I'm paid (not much) to do shoots, but mostly its just freebie shoots for friends and club owners.
My current lens bag contains:
Canon 5dMk3 (crucial due to needing the ISO for dark spaces)
Sigma 24-105mm F4 IS
Canon 50mm f1.4
Canon 580 EX II Speed light (chosen for reliability over the off camera Yongnuo 685s I own which dont work as well in ETTL)
My dilemma: Selecting a good lens set that covers the available range while remaining lightweight enough to be practical. Big lenses are great but they are difficult to carry, and I can't set my gear bag down at all in these environments, I have to carry it 24-7.
Current bag rationale: I picked the Sigma 24-105 f4 because of cost ($800). I actually once owned a Canon 24-70 f2.8 (mark 1 model) but it was stolen. The Sigma is slower than the Canon but I am nervous about buying a $1700 lens for a nightclub.
Meanwhile the 50mm f1.4 is there to give me the ability to shoot in very low light, which is crucial for stage shows. I love this lens. I would marry it and leave the Sigma at home entirely, except for one thing. The field of view is often too narrow to be useful. If I've got my 50 mounted and have to do a group photo I'm just hosed. There's often not enough room to back up, and shooting on-cam flash means staying within 15ft. So as much as I love it, I have to find a similar, wider lens.
Given all of this, I basically see myself as having 5 options.
1. Stay with what I've got and just work with it. The cheapest option by far, if perhaps not the most satisfying. Particularly annoying is trying to shoot cramped, lowlight stage shows with a 50mm, or groups of screaming sorority girls.
2. Buy a 35mm prime lens to replace the 50mm in my bag. I've looked at the Canon 35mm f2.0 IS specifically. It's $500 or so. It's not as good a lens as the 1.4s, but it is a fairly low weight.
3. Go on eBay and try to find a Mark 1 35mm f2.0 lens, which from what I can tell is much less expensive than the newer IS version. Unfortunately, Canon discontinued it. I have zero experience with this lens and whether it would actually help me in this situation or whether it would just introduce new problems.
4. Buy the Canon or Sigma 35mm 1.4. Problem: these lenses are heavy and getting into the price range where I am seriously antsy about getting something stolen. The weight is also a factor. I can barely feel the 50mm in my bag, and thats part of what makes it so attractive.
5. Go with an exotic, like the Tamron 15-30mm f2.8. This would let me take some additional "cool" wide shots. (I currently own a Canon 16-35 f4 IS which is lovely but totally impractical for this job.) But again with the weight. If I went with one of these I'd need to ditch my Sigma 24-105 altogether. But maybe a combo of the Tamron + Canon 50mm would work.
Any insights people can provide will be helpful. I try to talk to my local camera dealers, but I lose them after "nightclub."
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