Two things you haven't really told us are if the 20-35 you have is the FA 20-35/4 that is so good or some other one. Secondly, how often are you wishing to go wider than 16mm?
Last summer when I was preparing to go to Arches and Monument Valley, I was in a similar dilemma, I was trying to decide if my 16-45 was wide enough or did I need a 12-24. At that time, the Pentax model was not out yet, only the Sigma and my 16-45 wasn't scratched either. I went down to the local camera shop and tried a bunch of shots with the 12-24 and finally decided that I could live without it. It turned out that I didn't miss the ultra wide that much. You can only get a few specific looks with that type of lens. Either just a big vista that no longer looks wide when you see the image, or something real close up made very big and the background receding away rapidly. Almost as cliche as a fisheye look. So my recommendation is that if you have the FA 20-35/4, you just get the 14/2.8 and work with both lenses. Otherwise, just get a new 16-45 (one of my favorite scenic lenses). My hunch is that you will find as I did that the 12-24 is really a much more specialty lens than first thought. -- Best regards, Bruce Tuesday, April 11, 2006, 11:00:06 AM, you wrote: JR> Trusty Pentaxians, JR> To prepare for a trip, I find myself having to e-bay / replace my 16-45mm JR> lens. There's a scratch on the front element that shows up in photos if I JR> close down past f8 or so. JR> With that in mind, I'm trying to take the opportunity to re-evaluate my JR> lens situation. In short, the question is: should I get a new 16-45 or the JR> 12-24mm? More specifically, my main question is how do the two compare at JR> 16mm? I'm not sure if any one can answer this besides Paul (he came up on JR> just about every search in the archives), but any feedback will be JR> appreciated. JR> Other thoughts: Current lenses are 20-35, 24-70, 50, 70-200mm. Main camera JR> is *ist-D. JR> How distorted is the 12-24mm at the wide end? I noticed that Paul corrects JR> his shots in PS... but I don't own PS, so that won't be an option. It'll JR> be used 70% of the time for landscapes / waterfalls. While the 12-24mm is JR> nicely wide, I think I'll miss the versatility of the 16-45mm. The other JR> option is getting a 14mm... but that's running a distant 3rd right now. JR> Just thinking aloud. JR> - Jerome
