As I was hiking two days ago as mentioned on my blog, I also looked for interesting photo subjects on my way. The first signs of spring were visible, I did for example see the first Snowdrops (Galanthus) growing and I had to take photos. The photo in this post was actually shot with my Tamron 70-300 mm lens. I had the tele lens with me because I wanted to photograph deer, but I can also use this lens to take photos of things like flowers. The lens is actually not too bad for flower photography, because the long focal length can produce depth of field if you know how. I hope you like the photo, it’s been a while since I uploaded a flower photo, but in case you liked it, here is where you can find more flower photos on my blog.
Diary of Dennis 
Yes, that is a good use of a telephoto lens! I think people forget that you don’t need a different lens for each specific photo need if you learn how to use specific use lenses in new ways!
Exactly…. when I started for example, people even mentioned in forums that I should totally skip the Nikon 18-105 kit lens. I didn’t. It turned out that this lens taught me a lot, and where to go. And as soon as I understood this lens, I could take some really cool shots with it. Same goes for the Tamron 70-300 lens… most people wouldn’t get the idea to take flower photos with it, but it’s working well, as said mainly because of the long focal length that will result in nice depth of field. It’s really worht to experiment with the own lenses, to learn what you can do with them. 🙂
My first lens was an 85mm. it took me a few months before I could afford the next one, then another few months before I could afford the one after that, and so on. A zoom lens was the very last lens I bought, a most two years after I started adding lenses to my set up. By that time, I knew how to get the shots I wanted using the fixed focal length lenses, and I barely ever used the zoom lens.
My first prime lens is the Nikon 50mm 1.8g… I needed something cheap for family portraits and I like that one. Apart from that I didn’t use it a lot unless I wanted to get some nice bokeh-style shots (for example Christmas lights), which works nicely with this lens too. But spring comes, that’s where I really can test the 50mm lens I guess, because I want to try flower photography with it and other stuff. I’d like to own a very long prime lens with teleconverter for bird photography… but since there are tele zoom lenses like the Sigma 150-600mm contemporary, it’s very tempting to save for this one instead. I really get the point about prime lenses, but I like this workflow of zoom lenses… for example with my Tamron when I spot a bird, I am at 70mm to find it in the viewfinder, and then I go to 300mm to take the actual shot if I want it to frame it that way. That would not work anymore with a prime, but on the otherside I like the aperture of prime lenses and that I can get even more reach with a TC attached. Not to mention that I would also be in the market for a macro lens (that I could of course also use as a portrait lens). I think in the future, I will become a lens collector, but I try to get the best out of what I have now or with what I will get in the future.
Well. you know it… our photography hobby is funny, but meanwhile it’s also about making decisions and spending money (laugh)… I remember in 2011 when I started this blog, it was not about photo sharing… my photos were taken with a point and shoot and only so that my text content was a bit more beautiful with images. Turned out that I liked the whole photography aspect and invested over time in camera gear, now it’s more focused on sharing images 😀 It’s funny. I didn’t expect that I would dive into this so deeply, but it’s a very relaxing hobby, and as you said, we can learn new things or discover how things work.
You developed your skills fast, Dennis! Anyway, I got my Nikon 50mm f1.8 lens because someone else lent his to someone else who ran over it with an armed personnel carrier because he wanted to see what would happen..! Anyway, he bought the guy who lent him the first lens another one. By that time, the lender had switched to Canon equipment, so he sold me the Nikon 50mm f1.8 lens for $50US.
Yes, money means nothing once you catch the camera bug! I’ve been there, and ended up going from Nikon film cameras to a point-and-shoot Nikon. Then because of complications downloading photos and videos to my PC, I ended up using my smart phone for my photographic needs! It never ends!
Thanks for the compliment. And you made a nice bargain. My 50mm is a used one as well, but I couldn’t get such a great bargain, but still a good one… I paid $130 or so, which is still more than a half of what it costs locally in the stores in Germany and the lens looks very good and works, that’s what we aim for 🙂 Yeah, it’s always worth to check if we can find refurbished or used lenses, I recently started to check this market more often too before I purchase photography gear.