I've been going over the photos I took at the 2005 REU Talent Show, and now that I've reached the first belly dance shots (not yet posted), I've realized that there's a particular zoom range that my previously lusted-after combination (the EF-S 10-22 and the EF 24-70 f/2.8L) wouldn't cover: when shooting a subject moving throughout a single room, I'm taking a lot of shots ranging from 17mm to 30mm (and I could have used just a touch more than 17mm on the wide end), and I would have been much happier if they had been 1) sharper, 2) not flashed (as a side note unrelated to lenses, I really, really need to go buy myself a decent diffuser).

This got me thinking about that inconvenient split around the 24mm mark, and about how I actually use the zoom ranges that I have now, and I was finally thunderstruck by the obvious: a collection of lenses that span a large range of focal lengths doesn't necessarily give you the ability to conveniently use all of those focal lengths. There was no way I could have swapped lenses during that shoot fast enough to catch the shot I wanted, so if I want to upgrade completely from the 17-85 to f/2.8 lenses, I really only have one option: the 16-35 f/2.8L.

Just one small problem with that... it's a $1,400 lens. Ouch.

If I ended up going with that instead of the 10-22 EF-S, I'd pick up one extra mm of focal length, but wouldn't get the really wide angle shots. Ideally, I'd like to have both, and carry the 10-22 for landscapes and the 16-35 for indoors... but I'm not made of gold bricks. For what I tend to shoot, I'd probably use the 16-35 more. I could have used it at the last Beth Patterson concert, but the 24-70 would have done just as well there, actually, since my shots in that range were at 24mm and 35mm exactly. The sweet spot for the majority of shots turned out to be at 85mm, for which I have an excellent prime, as well.

That makes my current wishlist:

Canon EF-S 10-22: $730
Canon EF 16-35 f/2.8L: $1400
Canon EF 24-70 f/2.8L: $1150
Canon EF 50mm f/1.4: $310
Canon EF 100mm Macro f/2.8: $470
Sigma 80-400 EX OS: $1000

Anyone have a spare five grand lying about? I can take care of buying the filters and lens hoods myself...