“Glass”, as photographers call lenses (we all like to use jargon) is more important than the camera itself. That’s why I have many thousands of dollars’ worth of them:

The red lines mean “L-lens”, or “luxury lens”, i.e. a pro quality lens.

So why spend so much on lenses?

Because they make the photo. The camera does hardly anything. Also, lenses retain their value much better than cameras. The value of as lens is in part due to the intrinsic value of the optical glass. And that remains. So a lens keeps value and functionlity for 20 years or more.

And that is why it is sensible to spend on lenses. Your pictures will be noticeably better. A good lens is $2,000 in many cases; but offset that against he 20 +years use you will get out of it and it’s not so bad.

I have, there:

• 35 mm f/1.4
• 45 mm f/2.8 tilt-shift
• 85mm f/1.2
• 16-35 f/2.8 zoom
• 24-70 f/2.8 zoom
• 70-200 f/2.8 zoom

Question: why do I have so many prime (=fixed, non-adjustable) lenses (over half)?

Bonus Question: Those are six of my seven lenses. So where’s number 7?