It’s like one of those cartoons where the angel on my right shoulder is whispering: “Jon, you already have enough cameras to last you the rest of your life. Stand down, for crying out loud.”

Meanwhile, the voice in my other ear says: “Go ahead, Jon. You only live once.”

Will buying a new camera body make my pictures better? Probably not. Make that a qualified “no” unless I’m specifically gaining some enhanced specifications like 10 frame-per-second burst rate or useable ISO 12800 low light capability. Regardless, I want to aggressively continue to expand the scope of my creative possibilities.

What we all need is a “camera makeover” that allows us to do truly new things—things that we couldn’t do before—with our old cameras and without raiding our 401k accounts. The answer is simple and sensible: upgrade your DSLR by adding a new Tamron lens.

Adding a Tamron lens to your arsenal is somewhat like buying your favorite movies on Blu-ray discs—you begin to see new things, and you see familiar things in a new way. You can add image stabilization to a shaky body by selecting a Tamron lens that has VC, Vibration Compensation. You can extend your reach by adding a telephoto zoom; broaden your horizons with a super wideangle; take a closer look at the world with a Tamron Macro lens; or simply lighten your load with a Tamron all-in-one champ like the legendary 18-270mm zoom. We’ll take a closer look at some of the options momentarily.

There’s another reason why opting for a new lens may make more sense than splurging on a new camera: familiarity. It’s not necessary to learn the camera controls all over again. The old camera still operates the same way, even though the lens adds a new perspective. It’s so comfortable to use the camera model you know and love. The buttons are just where you expect them to be, and operation is intuitive and effortless. The newest bells and whistles are attractive, but it’s more important to me to be able to operate a camera without stopping to figure out how to set manual White Balance, or how to switch to AE Bracketing.

While I’ll be the first to admit that DSLRs do improve incrementally, I find myself clinging to cameras I purchased years ago. As a matter of fact, some of my favorite DSLR cameras are five years old or even older. I use a Canon EOS D60 from time to time, as well as a Nikon D70s, Minolta 7D and even a creaky old Canon EOS D30 (not the modern 30D—the EOS D30 was introduced ten years ago).

Many people buy their DSLR with a “kit lens” in the 18-55mm range. The best of these are referred to as “decent” by camera reviewers, which means that they’re not terrible. But they’re not great, either. The Tamron 17-50mm zoom is very high quality and outperforms every kit lens I’ve ever used.

Furthermore, with most kit lenses, the maximum shooting aperture changes as you zoom, so your 18-55mm may be f3.5 at wideangle but could be an f5.6 at the telephoto position. That’s a huge difference. And often they do not have image stabilization. You could find yourself shooting indoors at f5.6 at a slow shutter speed and without Vibration Compensation—and wondering why your pictures are fuzzy.

The Tamron 17-50mm f2.8 VC maintains a maximum aperture of f2.8 throughout the entire range, from wide to tele. You get more light to focus with, a brighter viewfinder and the ability to isolate the subject from the background by limiting depth of field, a technique regularly exploited by professional portrait photographers. More importantly, it’s incredibly sharp and delivers richly saturated images.

The big plus, in my book, is the Vibration Compensation (VC) feature. Camera movement is the number one cause of unsharp (and unpleasant) images. The image stabilization feature built into Tamron VC lenses eliminates the shakes and adds new versatility even to aging DSLR camera bodies. Replace your “kit” lens with a Tamron 17-50mm f2.8 VC and you’ll begin doing things that you could never do before with your DSLR.

Whether walking around in a big city, visiting the local zoo, or taking a drive through the countryside, having a great wideangle AND a superb telephoto without fumbling to change lenses is an incomparable convenience. Think about it: here’s a lens that lets you get more in the picture (at 18mm it’s equal to a 28mm true wideangle) and lets you bring distant subjects closer (at 270mm it becomes the equivalent of a 400mm on my Nikon). For travel, it can’t be beat.

The stabilizing Vibration Compensation is even more beneficial with long telephoto lenses. The longer the focal length, the harder it is to hold a lens steady. I’ve conducted numerous side-by-side comparisons with and without VC and I am convinced: Vibration Compensation is one of the most useful features you’ll ever enjoy.

Except for the most expensive ($2000 and up) full-frame models, all DSLR cameras use a sensor that’s smaller than the imaging target found in 35mm film cameras. Conventional camera lenses were designed to deliver a circle of light large enough to cover a 35mm film frame, so the smaller sensor of a digital camera uses only the center portion. As a result, the focal length is multiplied, usually by a factor of 1.5X or 1.6X. That cool 28mm becomes a not-so-cool 45mm lens when used on a digital SLR. It’s simple physics, and it makes photographers crazy because they can’t achieve true super wideangle.

Well, actually, they can. The Tamron 10-24mm zoom is the equivalent of a 15-36mm wideangle zoom on my Nikon D300s. And since it was designed from the ground up to perform its magic on a digital camera instead of a film camera, the results are superlative.

The typical DSLR user owns a camera body and the kit lens that was purchased as part of the package. More advanced users add other lenses to expand the versatility of their system. Sadly, many people overlook the most exciting type: the macro lens.

Macro lenses lead two lives. In their spare time they are super-sharp portrait lenses. The Tamron 60mm f2 is the equivalent of a 90mm f2, which is the very most perfect formula for portraits. Its main application, however, is as a razor-sharp macro lens that allows users to capture dramatic close-up images. Attach a Tamron macro lens to your camera and you’ll begin seeing and photographing the world in a whole new way.

We’ve all seen it—the photo of a soccer match, baseball game or beach volleyball tournament in which every person is so small that it’s totally impossible to even guess who is who. It doesn’t have to be that way. Add a Tamron telephoto zoom—like the sharp and fast 70-200mm f2.8—and you’ll be able to zero in on individuals and capture all of the action. Even older DSLR cameras perform like young pups when used with a fast, modern telephoto zoom.

Today I’m heading out with one of my classic 6-megapixel cameras and a bag full of Tamron lenses. I’ll be photographing an assortment of late season roses. Mostly I’ll be using a Tamron 180mm f3.5 Macro because it’s one of the sharpest lenses I’ve ever used. In the old days we used to say that the camera holds the film while the lens takes the picture. I guess things really haven’t changed that much.