On 12/11/03, [EMAIL PROTECTED] disgorged: >>Heiko, I have the Sigma EX 14mm 2.8 and use it on my D60, giving an >>effective focal length of 22.4mm. On an *ist D it should work out to >>about 21mm. > >That's a good hint. Maybe I was focused on wide angle zooms, too much.
Ah, zooms. I never considered a wide zoom when I wanted my wide angle. I'm not sure why. I had a play with a 15-30 or something like that and to be honest I couldn't see the point of the zooming range. I figure if you're going to be wide and want to zoom in a bit, just move forward instead! The thing with wide zooms that goes against the grain with me is that it instills laziness. With a tele zoom, you can cover a lot of ground without moving a foot, much more than you could if you had to walk to get the right shot with a prime tele. I can understand using medium wide mostly, and then not being wide enough and needing to zoom out as wide as possible (say, shooting a group in a confined space / small room etc). But if you had the big wide already, you could simply move forward to frame if you were too far back. That's my twisted thinking anyway. Plus there's a part of me that still thinks a prime lens has got to be better than a zoom. I'm not sure how true that is in this day and age.... > >>Personally, with a Pentax I would go for the A 15mm 3.5. > >I have an eye on them at eBay. Sometimes you can get one at 450-500 Euro >- that would be about the same as the Sigma EX14. So it comes to a >trade-off: SMC without AF or AF without SMC. At the moment I would go >for the Pentax, too. As you know, I'm a manual focus guy. I do us the AF on my AF lenses sometimes, though rarely. Mostly on the 70-200 with my lad's football or whatever. I personally think AF on 14mm lens is a complete and utter waste of time and I never have it switched on. Why? The depth of field at this focal length renders focus almost academic. Certainly with landscapes. I set for good depth of field and let it go. I have not been disappointed. My focal length choice (he rambled on) has settled well over the years and I now have the right combination for me. I'll use 35mm equivalent here: Primes 22mm - wide for landscapes and street. 38mm macro - street and portraiture 80mm - portraits Zooms 44-112mm - street, general use, walkabout, only one lens 112-320mm - landscape, people, sport, everything else + 1.4 TC if needed. I have it all covered in 5 lenses. I seriously can't think of anything I don't do with that lot. I don't do wildlife (ha!) so I'm not into big glass. Okay, maybe a 100mm macro might be nice but I don't do the macro work to justify it. Besides a 38mm in macro (24mm EX macro) is a very interesting focal length for a macro and it's superb on faces! Sorry to ramble on. Good luck with your wide quest Heiko. Cheers, Cotty ___/\__ || (O) | People, Places, Pastiche ||=====| www.macads.co.uk/snaps _____________________________ Free UK Mac Ads www.macads.co.uk
