EOS 5DI bought a refurbished one in 2007. Full-frame was important to me, and at the time this was the most affordable way to get it. Still very happy with this purchase; even with the Mark II out now, I think I'll stick with this body for a good long time. It's old enough that it doesn't have fancy anti-dust features, or movie mode, or a big LCD, but I don't really miss that stuff/wouldn't help me take better pictures.
EF 85mm f/1.2L II USMProbably 80-90% of my shots are portraits, mostly candid. Family, friends, pets, etc. Often indoor, and low-light. I don't have, nor am I really interested in getting a flash. As such this is my most-used, and favorite lens. The focal length is just long enough to keep me out of my subject's face so they can ignore me, but not so long that working indoors would be difficult. The aperture gives me fantastic low-light performance, motion-blur-stopping shutter speed, and crazy-wow bokeh. This is also my most expensive lens by a fair margin.
EF 35mm f/1.4L USMI just got this lens a few months ago. Sometimes I shoot landscapes, sometimes I want to capture a whole room, and sometimes I just need something wide. For my purposes, on a full-frame, 35mm is probably as wide as I'll ever need.
EF 28mm f/1.8 USMI've had this lens for a long time, but to be honest I don't really like it much. Too much chromatic aberration in high-light situations, and too much vignetting in low-light situations. It's not a bad lens per se; I think I'm just picky. I got the 35mm to replace this one, so it's sitting in the corner unused.
EF 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 DO IS USMThis is my longest lens, and it's also my only zoom. I like how compact it is for its focal length, and the image stabilization is fantastic, but its small aperture makes its uses very niche. I've learned to keep the aperture locked at f/8 when at 300mm; opening it up more than that loses a lot of sharpness. It's not as picky at wider focal lengths. The lens is really great outdoors in full-sun, and can even be used as a macro in a pinch. Great for a day at the park.
EF 200mm f/2.8L II USMI just got this lens a few months ago; at the same time as my 35mm. My nephew decided he wanted to play basketball on his school's team, so I needed something long with an aperture big enough to use indoors. Works great; completely usable at f/2.8. Not long enough to need image stabilization, for my uses. It's smaller, lighter, and cheaper than the 70-200/2.8, and it's black so it doesn't attract as much attention. I used it a lot at the beach on my recent vacation to Hawaii; the bigger aperture let me get faster shutter speeds, freezing the action when the kids were playing in the water. And the fancy-ass bokeh is a nice perk.
EF 50mm f/2.5 Compact MacroI got this one because I needed a macro lens, and didn't have a 50mm prime yet. It's equally useful for both. Sure, the magnification is only 1:2, but if I ever need more than that I'll get a microscope. 1:2 is plenty for my needs. The focusing is loud and slow, and I don't care. The lens is sharp as all hell, whether it's a macro shot or a portrait. Sometimes I just need a 50mm because my 85 is too long, and my 35 is too wide. It's a great hiking lens, because it's tiny and light, and I usually come across something small I want to take a picture of, and 50mm is a great walk-around focal length. This is probably my 2nd-most used lens.
Photography is just a hobby for me. I had considered trying to make money off it, but I decided that would probably take a lot of the fun away, and I want it to stay fun. I'm also probably not good enough at it to be pro anyway. Maybe someday. I'm pretty happy with my lens collection as it is; I can't think of anything else I'd need, so I think I'm done. I thought about getting the
Extender EF 2x II, but it would really only work on my 200mm. An effective 400mm/5.6 might be fun, but I don't know.
Before I got my Canon I had a Fuji superzoom, which was a nice camera for what it was. After owning it for about a year, it died. Every shot was purple and distorted, kinda like it was trying to tune a cable channel that it didn't pay for.
So after that I decided I wanted a serious camera, and spent the next couple months casually reading everything I could find about SLRs. Eventually decided on a 5D, and a couple of lenses. Then I ripped apart my Fuji and
played with its guts.
Every so often I take a handful of my favorite pics and make some really big prints at
Scrapbook Pictures. Big as in 30 x 20 inches or so; I even got a few prints bigger than that. They actually do a pretty good job. There's a local shop that makes good frames for pretty cheap, and I hang them up on my walls. It's been about a year since I last did that, and I'm thinking about doing it again soon, but I'm lazy.