I have to consider also other things than just event photography as I'm making photography (and graphic design) somewhat of a profession for myself. At the moment I'm working on getting myself decent gear for panoramic shots - I think I could get a bunch of customers interested in them and the "virtual tours" they enable.
I am busy making it my proffesion as well
A good wide-angle lens can be used in many situations. The panorama shots you talk about, can also be achieved with a nice 16-35/2.8 or a 17-35/2.8 ( and also be glad that we have a cropfactor of x.1.6 , if we had a full-frame sensor, and we would use such a lens, you would get enormous lens flare

).
In terms of usage, I would prefer a wide-angle lens above a fish-eye lens. You don't always want a fish-eye effect and just a plain wide-angle photo. But I must say, a 8 mm fish-eye would be really nice
What kind of fish eye? Zenitar? Sigma?
Seriously, should anyone even expect anything else than that? It's a cheap lens and in my opinion it's just provided with the kit so people that buy these kits may start shooting straight away and buy better lenses later on.
Although I must say I find it's quality quite sufficient for many tasks - even commercial ones - and still use it regularly.
Your totally right. At higher aperture sizes the kit lens does provide enough quality. Unfortunaly you can't aford to lose an aperture size when shooting at any event which takes place indoor. At the moment I only do event photography. Still bring it along everytime, but rarely use it. Only if there is so much crowd that I can't even get a good clear shot of the partypeeps with my 24-70.
Also the
great advantage you get with Canon L lenses. You can shoot at F/2.8, even at 70 mm ( or 200 with a 70-200 lens

).
Ain't no way no how I'm going to spend any money on Tamron lenses ever again. Had one, hated it and was quite satisfied when it was stolen at gunpoint in Africa.
Maybe you just had an bad example? That does happen, even with the Canon lenses. What kind of lens was that? From what I have heard, the 16-35 from tamron is quite good quality. You wil lose some aperture size at 35mm, but you shouldn't use such a lens for zoom purphases anywhay
I'm not too much into zoom lenses anyway. Somehow I'm under the impression that fixed focal length lenses provide better value / quality.
Primes are far more sharper than any zoom lens. That is a fact...
But I find the advantages of zoom lenses far more acceptable then the disadvantages. A prime maybe sharper and provider a "warmer" color. But the zoomlenses are sharp enough, and you can also photoshop the colors somewhat (gotta love RAW format

). You have far more flexibility with zoom lenses and don't need to change so many lenses all the time.
Unless you maybe buy a second body... Lately I've been seeing much more proffesional photographers with 2 1DsMK-II, one with a prime, and one with a zoom lens...
But well, That's a too expensive solution anyway...
The transmitter's been pretty cool. Of course it has it's limitations but a whole lot more advantages.
What is the range of that transmitter? 100~200 meters or so? Would be nice to have such a thing if it works properly... Great for constantly shooting at raw format I presume
