FAQ - Getting Started

What is the Philly Lens Library?

The Philadelphia Lens Library is a Canon lens rental and consulting service run by Conrad Erb.

It’s not a library, in the sense of lots of books on shelves, and people who say “shhhh!”.

Do you have any relationship with Canon?

No. This is an independent rental service.

I’m a pro photographer and I know what I want. How do I proceed?

Great. Please contact Conrad at 215-821-7161 to schedule your pickup, and you can browse available Canon equipment and checkout online, or Conrad will send you an invoice via email.

I’m a newbie and have no idea where to start. Canon has a zillion lenses and I can’t choose. Can you help?
Sure. Get in touch via this form, or give me a call: 215-821-7161.

Who is Conrad Erb?

Check out Conrad Erb Photography.

Do you offer Nikon, Sony or other other lenses for rent?
No, I’m afraid not. We specialize in Canon lens rentals.

Where are you located?

Cedar Works Studio Warehouse, 4919 Pentridge Street, Philadelphia PA 19143. Please note that walk-in service is not offered.

Who are the other rental sources in Philly?
Yes. Check out Lightbulb Rentals (formerly Resolution Rentals) and Red Star Rentals (formerly Videosmith) and Web Cam.

Hold on. Why in the world would you put in links above to your competition?

Because I believe that most customers are looking for solid information and trust, and a business will thrive if it prioritizes the needs of its customers for information instead of trying to maximize the dollar value of a single transaction.

Why rent from the Lens Library? How you are different?
- I am a Canon specialist and offer a deep range of Canon gear (for instance, a full set of the supertelephoto lenses; 500mm F4 IS L, 300mm 2.8 IS L and the 200mm 2.0 IS L). If you want Canon gear, it’s my understanding that I offer more than any other brick-and-mortar service from Atlanta to NYC.
- I offer availability for emergency pickups outside of business hours.
- I can offer a lot of guidance to new photographers based on my working experience.

FAQ -about LENS RECOMMENDATIONS

I’m very busy and/or I don’t like to/cannot read/do not know how to use the internet. How can you help?
No problem. Call Conrad at 215-821-7161.

What is a good general purpose lens – one lens to rule them all?

All lenses are compromises, but most photographers start with a general purpose zoom, and the 24-70 L Mark 2 does not disappoint (or the equivalent EF-S lens, which is called the 17-55mm 2.8 IS, and made specifically for crop body cameras). These lenses are fast (for a zoom), sharp and useful for many applications. I always have this lens handy, no matter what assignment.

The 24-105mm F4 IS L can be excellent candidate for travel. It’s a good compromise between a wide focal range, aperture and IS, at a very reasonable size and weight, while delivering high quality images.

If a prime: perhaps the 35mm L or the 50m 1.2 L, or the 85mm 1.2 L Mark 2. One can build a career one a single example of those lenses.

For someone totally new to photography:

Keep it really simple: the 50mm 1.4. It is small and sharp and will help you get the basics.

For your first L lens, for someone getting more seriously into photography:

If you are just starting out, you probably already have a 18-55 or 28-80 equivalent zoom as a kit lens, so adding a 70-200 F4 L zoom is a great first L lens with reasonable cost, size with a great image quality for your buck.

If you have cash to spare, you can jump right to the 70-200 2.8 IS L Mark 3. It’s Canon’s premium 70-200 offering.

What about for low light work?

The L primes are all great candidates for super low light work. If they can’t do well, either you aren’t doing things properly (ie. shooting at ISO800 instead of 12k or it’s too dark to do anything other than, say, have a candle-lit wedding ceremony.

And for weddings?

I have a lot of experience in this domain, and I bring around 10+ lenses for my weddings, so it is hard to say what to use unless I can understand where you are now, and where you want to go. At the level of production photography, a lot of lens selection depends style, and it’s more art than science.

I find these ones I use the most: 35mm 1.4 L, 85mm 1.2 L Mark 2, 70-200 2.8 IS L Mark 3 and the 24-70 2.8 L Mark2. I sprinkle in the 100mm macro, a tilt shift (17mm or 24mm TS-E), sometimes a 15mm fisheye as well as the 16-35mm F4 IS L.

What do you recommend for outdoor sports?

Most users should consider a 70-200 F4 or 2.8 of some type for outdoor sports. For serious tennis or baseball shooters, the telephoto primes like the 200mm 2.0 L, 300mm 2.8 L and 500mm F4 L are what you see being used by Sports Illustrated professionals. Indoor shooters might also consider the 135mm F2 for low light work.

For portraits?

The 85mm 1.2 L Mark 2, the 135mm L and the 70-200 2.8 IS Mark 3 are all worth looking at. All ridiculously sharp, fantastic color. You can have an entire career just with the 85mm 1.2 L Mark 2 or similar (just ask Philadelphia photographer Steve McCurry).

Filmmakers?

Canon has been a strong video platform since the release of the 5D Mark 2 back in 2008, and the L primes are all very popular with filmmakers, across the board, because the bokeh on those optics would look like very expensive cine lenses. If you are making a skateboarding movie, you will want the 15mm fisheye, of course.

Architecture?

The 24mm TS-E Mark 2 and 17mm TS-E tilt shift lenses are the key to parallel nonconvergence, particularly in building exteriors, as well as the “miniature effect”. Examples from my work are below.

Something that will give a different look?

The 45mm tilt shift can produce some hauntingly beautiful images (when used properly – it has a bit of a learning curve).

News photojournalism and documentary work?

For serious photojournalism, you know what you need. For everyone else, the three L zooms are what I see most photographers starting with (the 16-35 2.8 Mark 2 or F4 IS version, the 24-70mm 2.8 L Mark 2 and the 70-200 Mark 3).

For slow, low light work, again, the L primes are the obvious choice.

A lens that will make my spouse less upset at me for ruining the monthly budget?

Haha. Well, in that case, the 70-200 F4. Sharp and good bang for the buck for an Llens.

FAQ - ABOUT L LENSES

What is the Canon L series?

The L series is Canon’s high-end/luxury lens line, designed for serious photographers and imaging professionals. The L series lenses are easily recognizable by the bright red ring on the front element.

What’s the big deal about the L lenses?

First – L lenses are made with very high quality glass, so the images they produce are very sharp, with excellent color, contrast and bokeh (bokeh is the creamy out of focus areas of an image).

The images that result look great right out of camera, and require very few tweaks in post.

Second, they are fast, in two senses of the word. They tend to have great autofocus capabilities, but pros use “fast” to indicate lenses with large apertures. L lenses will gobble up light because they are often in the 2.8, 2.0 or even 1.2 range. You can shoot with a fast L prime in conditions where consumer grade, 3.5-5.6 lenses would be completely useless (and you get a sharper and more compelling, expressive image).

Third, they feature a very high build quality. These lenses are built like tanks and can stand up to professional level use. The downside to this - particularly for smaller people - is that they tend to be heavier and larger than consumer lenses. The upside to this is that if you can use them as a hammer. Just joking.

Fourth, they are expensive. The basic L primes (85mm, 50mm or 35mm, depending on what you prefer) will run you over $1000. Each. The best L zooms will be over $2000.

Fifth, they look cool. Some people have fancy cars. Some millionaires have helicopters. Photographers with a bit of money to burn have L series lenses.

Are the L series lenses that much better than the Canon consumer lenses or the third party lenses (Tokina, Tamron, Sigma, etc.)?

The short answer – yes, but keep reading. There is a reason why nearly every professional photographer who shoots with Canon uses the L series lenses, and not the Tokina, Tamron, or Sigma version.
The longer answer, is that while third party lenses do not beat the Canon L’s, they can absolutely compete on the basis of excellent value. Specifically, from the early 2010’s onward, Sigma has been making some impressive gains in the quality of their lenses. Nearly all pros who shoot Canon use Canon L glass, but for many serious photographers, Sigma lenses can offer a significant savings with only a modest hit in optical performance.

There are so many lenses, and I don’t know which one is best for my needs. Can you provide a few recommendations?

Certainly. Give me a call, and we can talk you through it. My job is to give you good information, and not a sales pitch.

Why don’t you have any of the cheaper lenses, like the 35mm 2.8 or the 18-55mm EF-S?


They aren’t as useful for professional image-making, and they are easier to find. Your friends may have them. Buy your friends some beer and borrow their lens.

Do you ship or delivery rentals?


In special situations, this can be arranged. Most customers pick up from our Cedar Works location.

FAQ - FOR BEGINNER PHOTOGRAPHERS

I’m a starving artist/photo student and I have a really quick question about lenses or cameras or photography. Can you help me?

Of course, I’m happy to chat for a few minutes: 215-821-7161. If I’m in an appointment or a commitment with a client, I’ll call you back. I got a lot of free help when I was starting out, and I’m usually inclined to pay it forward when I can.

I’m not starving, but there’s so much gear, and I’m a bit overwhelmed. Can you help?

Sure. Call me at 215-821-7161 and I can help simplify things for you.

I want to do what you do. Do you offer lessons, training or consultations for projects?


I am happy to offer consultations.

I’m a beginning photographer, looking to get into photography more. I heard that Canon has been falling behind compared to Nikon and Sony. Is this true?

I have two answers. Short answer: not really. Longer answer: Cameras exist in ecosystems, and all of the major manufacturers (Canon/Nikon/Sony) offer a mature and well-rounded camera platforms from the sub $1000 to the >$5k range.

Beginning photographers should make their purchases based on what makes sense to them (what’s intuitive? what’s not? what ergonomically works? what doesn’t?) and value.

Most beginners don’t know what dynamic range is, what signal versus noise means, what a clean 4k at 12k ISO looks like, and they don’t need to, either. Most beginners want to pay well under $1000 for an entire setup and be happy with it for a long time.

While I have a financial interest in people working with Cano products, for most novices, the choice between Canon, Nikon or Sony is largely irrelevant. All have excellent offerings, and both Canon and Nikon, in particularly, live in a very healthy camera ecosystem.

Ok. What’s your advice for beginners?

Most beginners are well advised to focus less on performance specifications of their equipment - because most people will not push their equipment to the technical limit - and more about their performance and results as a photographer.

Learn how to shoot in manual mode. Learn the basics of f-stop/aperture, shutter speed and ISO, and their relationship.

Just to offer some perspective, I grew up shooting on a (film) Pentax K1000, then started shooting professionally on an Olympus OM-1 and OM-2n, a Yashicamat 124G twin-lens reflex, and then moved to the Canon 10D circa 2003 or so. In terms of features, all of these cameras are absolute dinosaurs, but they all did what a professional photographer needed: aperture, shutter speed and high quality glass. That’s it. For the most part, the tools that I have today are mostly better because they make it much easier for me to do my job. The only true technical difference is that the low-light performance of cameras today is dramatically better these days compared to when I was starting out in the early 2000s. Other than that, cameras are cameras. You may disagree, and point out megapixel values, and while that’s true on paper, 99% of images you shoot are only viewed on a screen, and never get printed, and a lot of photographers could shoot with a 8 megapixel camera and hardly tell the difference.

In summary: Canon, Nikon and Sony all offer great products with good bang-for-the-buck that most starting photographers will not find limiting at all. I happen to swim in the Canon ecosystem.

Do you have any advice for someone who wants to have a career in photography?

Absolutely. I have a few pieces of advice.

Keep in mind that a career in photography looks very different now than it did when I started shooting commercially (circa 2000), and different again now versus before Instagram.

#1: The proof is in the doing. Do. Do. Do. Learn some basic ideas and then go shoot and see what happens.

#2: Practice a ton, and actively learn using the incredible tools at your disposal. It used to cost me around $0.50-$1 per frame to experiment on film, and wait a few days for developing. It’s infinitely cheap now. The amount of information for learning about photography is literally at a new peak every single day. The only true cost is your time. There’s little excuse to not be a technically perfect photographer.

#3: Differentiate photography as a business versus photography as personal expression of creativity. It’s important to see that they aren’t the same thing. Neither is better than the other. The term “vanity project” exists for a reason. There’s a huge difference between shooting as a hobby and shooting professionally. If you want to shoot professionally, that’s fine, but it will probably mean killing your hobby. After a decade of full time professional photography, people ask me what I “shoot for fun”. I don’t shoot anything for fun any more.

#4. Be your own worst critic, and edit, edit, edit. If other people tell you how amazing your work is, and you aren’t satisfied, then you are - perversely - on the right track. Go review your work from a few years ago, and if it suddenly isn’t as great as you remember, you are on the right track. Your family members and friends aren’t the best critics. They tell you nice things. Don’t trust them.

#5: If you want to use photography to make an impact on the world, please be forgiving to yourself. If you are disappointed with your work, celebrate the fact that you have high standards. Young/early-stage photographers are generally the most eager to express themselves, and if their work doesn’t measure up to their internal barometer, they sometimes give up far too quickly instead of realizing that their taste and ambition is the secret sauce. If you don’t trust me, listen to the public radio legend Ira Glass:

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Any other pieces of free advice?

Yes.

Learn how to backup your images well before your first hard drive fails. It will fail, I promise you. It’s a matter of if, not when.
 If you have a long career, this might happen multiple times.

Also, spend some time learning about business structures, professional liability insurance, and tax implications early on. Just because your business earns a dollar does not mean that you earned one dollar.

You talked about “the long game” as the best practice for businesses. Just curious, any other business wisdom that you recommend?

Sure. Seth Godin has been sharing his simple but helpful ideas for entrepreneurs every day for years and years. For something more linear, you can’t go wrong with Josh Kauffman’s Personal MBA.

Hey, I read to the bottom! I’m ready to do something!
Awesome. Give Conrad a call: 215-821-7161.