On Sep 21, 2005, at 2:03 PM, Scott Loveless wrote:
At last count, there are 12 Pentax brand primes between 14mm and
135mm listed at B&H Photo:
29 from Nikon, 16 from Canon, and 24 from Leica (not that I can afford
anything they currently offer).
I dunno, Scott. I only need one lens each of a few focal lengths. I
certainly don't need to own 12, not to mention 29. I don't know
Nikon's current line-up very well, and I'm not interested in Leica's
either for the same reason you aren't.
In the Canon line-up, the ones worth looking at are the USM lenses
and L series. The cheaper ones are pretty nasty, that cuts the number
by 1/3 at least. I bought primes for the 10D: the 20/2.8, 28/1.8,
50/1.4 and 100/2. Pretty much the same choices available for the
Pentax, but I went for a slightly different mix: 14, 20-35, 35, 50,
and 135.
(I wanted but couldn't afford the Canon EF 14mm f/2.8L ... that lens
alone is $1800 street price, the Pentax is a bargain for its quality.
It's one of the reasons why I moved to the Pentax ... There were more
lens options available. ;-)
A 20 and a 50 will give you about the same FoV pairing as you are
currently using on your MX (a little shorter on the long end, a
little longer on the wide end, but not by much).
The 50 on an APS sensor is a bit short for my tastes.
Field of View angles
First letter indicates D=DSLR, F=35mm SLR.
Horizontal - Vertical - Diagonal degrees
---
FL - H - V - D
D 50.0 - 26.9 - 18.2 - 32.2
D 55.0 - 24.6 - 16.6 - 29.4
F 85.0 - 23.9 - 16.1 - 28.6
D 60.0 - 22.6 - 15.2 - 27.0
What you want is about 58mm FL, although I can't see how less than
four degrees in diagonal FoV makes enough difference to matter. I
think you could get used to it. :-)
Godfrey
