On 29 January 2011 05:54, Larry Colen <[email protected]> wrote: > Unless you need the weather sealing, you could also look for a Tamron 18-250. > When I was putting my kit together I got one so that I'd always have a lens > of the focal lengths I most needed available. It was the lens that lived on > my camera body, so that if something came up, I could get the shot, right > now, and not have to fumble with changing lenses. I gave up a bit of IQ, > but it did better at 250 than using my FA31 and cropping. > > As my collection of primes grew I used it less and less. The funny thing is > I eventually realized that for a lot of work it is sharp enough. While my > views on clarity have been examined to painful detail, it is not the only > element by which a photo should be judged, and it's often better to give up a > little bit of sharpness rather than miss the entire shot. For what it's > worth, my picture that made it into Augenblick last may was shot with my > 18-250 on my K100Ds and cropped down to about 3 Megapixels. > > On Jan 28, 2011, at 8:07 AM, Darren Addy wrote: > >> On Wed, Jan 26, 2011 at 3:50 PM, Peter McIntosh <[email protected]> wrote: >>> Oh - totally uninformed banter also most welcome... :-) >> >> Good, because I'm FULL of totally uninformed banter - just ask my wife. >> >> No personal experience, but in my opinion lenses like this are >> designed for people who are allergic to changing lenses. In exchange >> for that "convenience" you give up speed AND optical quality (there >> must be a compromise in IQ for that kind of a focal length range. I >> suppose it depends on your priorities and pocketbook. The one rating >> on Amazon gives it 4 stars, and the reviewer prefers primes for IQ >> over convenience. It might be good for taking into a harsh environment >> (like Burning Man or something) where you purposely do not want to be >> changing lenses for sensor-protection reasons. But other than that, I >> just don't think I'd even want a lens of this range - unless perhaps i >> was buying it IN PLACE of the kit lens. >> > > I'm as snobby about primes as the next guy, and probably the guy after that. > I have found, however, that there are a lot of cases where using a zoom will > get me a better picture. The most critical situation is where I need to be > stationary, and my subject is moving around a lot. The IQ that I lose by > using a zoom is more than gained by not having to crop. Super zooms can have > good enough quality, it depends on the lens and the situation. > > At the moment, I only use three zooms on anything approaching a regular basis: > 16-50, 18-250 and 50-500. > > I'd love to have a 28-75 for aikido and band photography, and a 50-135 for > band photography and even some portrait sessions. > > --
I've got 3-4 primes, from 28mm to 135mm. I love to use them, but they don't come out of the camera bag all that often. I seem to spend most of my time with either the kit lens (18-55 DA II) or a Sigma 28-105 on the camera. I particularly like the Sigma and seem to be using that the most, mainly going back to the kit lens when the Sigma isn't wide enough. I see the 18-135 as letting me consolidate my 2 most-used lenses into one, while achieving a marked improvement in IQ over those 2 zooms. Regards, Pete Mac in Melbourne -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
