How many lenses should a professional photographer have?

As much as you need. A professional photographer is always hungry for new lenses.

Very valid answer from Magdy, I fully concur.

Now, let me be controversial:

A serious photographer (whether professional or not) needs one and only one lens: his vision of the world.

This one consists of his experience, his creativity, and the effective combination of his eye and brain.

Done.

Every piece of glass (these lenses one can buy in every shop) is just a tool to materialize his vision.

Not sure that Mark Twain was ever into photography, but his quote is spot-on

"You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus". 

Can be extended to the lens ...

Best regards

Actually the answer for this question totally depends on:

- The photographer specialization, and his level of professionalism, is he using a crop sensor or full frame DSLR.

- Is he going to shoot portrait, landscape, wildlife, sports or Macro...? That has a direct relation to select the DSLR camera body and lenses as well.

- Is he always shoot in low light situations, if so he must have a lenses with wide aperture to catch the small light available?

A lot of questions out there must be answered first Ghadeer to get the right answer you are seeking.

In summary, every photographer might have a collection of lenses but eventually he has to choose one type to complete the lenses set in order to produce a high quality shoots 

Thanks,

--Magdy

primarily3 Lenses

• 1,The general Purpose Zoom (18 -50)mm
• 2,The Macro Lense &
• 3, The Telephoto Zoom  (70 -200)mm

6 Lenses Must have wedding Photography

• 1, f/28L zoom lense70 -200mm
• 2, f1.4 lense50mm
• 3, f/28L usm24 -70mm
• 4, f/28 macro usm lense100mm
• 5, f/28 fisheye lense15mm
• 6, f/28LII usm ultra wide angle zoom lense16 -35mm

These are the most important Lenses as a minimum for a prophessional photographer

• Standard Zoom Lens: probably (18 -55)mm
• Prime Lens (35 Or55)mm based on your liking
• Telephoto Zoom Lens: with (70 -200/300)mm

But as most other commenters said the more Lenses you have the more profissional you will be.

I usualy call it: The photographer arsenal

Its depend on work criteria which kind of photographer you are if you work in all kind of photography then use Wide angle, Normal Zoom, Telephoto, Tilt Shift and Macro Lenses but i like mostly wide aperture lenses. :)

Although the body of a DSLR is important and if you want to take up serious photography, the best option is a full frame camera.

After that you should consider lenses that are motorized (have motors of their own)

and second, possibly feature and image stabilization chip.

Coming back to the topic. A budding photographer should have4 lenses, a lens from each of the four categories, which are:

Personally, I am more into videography and DSLR documentary making but I have learned a lot about photography over the last few years.

It depends on the range of their genre.. they may use different kind of lenses in every field of photography that may satisfy their self to get the best shot that they want..

Three lenses at all times. A35mm or a50mm, a300mm, and a mid-range zoom for walking around