Paul wrote, and I read... ..I never used a zoom for my first 30 years of photography. Mainly because they just wren't very good. ..I was exclusively a prime shooter. But today's zooms are good enough that I rarely use a prime. ..With the DA 12-24, the DA* 16-50, the DA* 50-135 and the DA* 60-250, I get a huge range of focal ..length options with performance and speed that is the equal of most primes. Hell, nearly all primes. ..Primes were once a far superior choice, but no more. ..Paul
>From 1976 to 1982 I had only primes - and for the first year only the 50mm >1.4. Before that I "had" 35, 50, 90 and 135mm lenses (Dad's). That made me able to move around instead of zooming the world to my desires. After '82 I used zooms as possible. Including Pentax's 35~70 2.8~3.5, that gave some competitors headaches in the Lx+ AF280t combo since I could move, zoom and TTL in a time many around me still used fixed 35mm and manual flashes to shoot events. At the time zooms were well below in quality - but then who wanted that sharpness in newspapers? Still kept a wide, 50mm and a tele, fixed, as fast as I could afford. Some got fungus. Moving up to product and fashion I got back to primes - exception being fashion events where models were falling everywhere :-) Zooms still left very much to desire. Also moved to 6x7 and 4x5 - yes, with fixed focal length lenses. Gave up aperture and mobility, sharpness was my goal in that space-time. Got back to zooms to avoid changing lenses in dusty, dirty places - and no need for that super sharpness again since the environment and intended use of the photos were lousy and small pics, respectively. Cheap and lightweight are beautiful when gear may be damaged, stolen or carried over long stretches of impenetrable country. I'd still choose primes today - assuming the ca$$$h availability - as I still object to barrel distortion in wide and would rather faster lenses as possible... some primes still offer an edge here. That said, and taking money as main motive, I'm living with 50 (3 diff flavors), 135 and 200mm primes - and the 18~55, 28~70, 28~200 and 80~320. And when I think about strong winds blowing sand and salt spray I still think about zooms and cheap cameras. Of course, I'm not a working pro lately... :-( Final (for now) idea: giving the 18~55 a formal try as "almost full format" lens, in particular at the 28 to 24mm focal range - on a simple test soon as I got the Ds, I noticed it's almost covering the viewfinder, and presents very low barrel distortion as compared to both the 28~70 f4 and Tamron's older 28~200mm zooms. Since I frame within the viewfinder, as long as what I framed is there there will be only one issue - actual image quality. And that shall be measured against intended use, as I always have done. Hey, this thread is named crazy idea, isn't it??? Luiz Felipe luiz.felipe at techmit.com.br http://www.techmit.com.br/luizfelipe -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
