<p>I largely agree with the initial remarks...<br>
Best: not every shot I took was awesome, because I make mistakes, but I was pretty consistently impressed with the output from the 135/2.<br>
Worst: my first SLR lens, the 18-55 EF-S that came with the Canon 650D in 2005. I did get some perfectly acceptable pictures with it, given ample good lighting, but on the whole the results looked about like what I got from much cheaper point-and-shoot cameras.<br>
But that said: I would guess that half or more of the pictures I've taken on Canon SLR cameras since 2005 have been with a 50/1.4 lens. I've owned a variety of "consumer" and "professional" lenses from 15mm to 300mm (including the much-talked-about 24-70/2.8 and 70-200/2.8 zooms), and for what I do, I keep coming back to the 50mm over and over. Obviously, if you need the reach of 300mm, a 50mm lens isn't going to cut it, but the point is, you don't necessarily need a full complement of focal lengths and expensive equipment to do good work.</p>