My take would be if that's the system you want look at capabilities, not
actual lenses. You could save a bit by getting a used DA 16-50mm a very
good lens, assuming you're going to want the extra reach of 60-250 which
will cover the middle to long telephoto range and look for a good used A
100mm f4.0 since most macro work is best manual focus anyway, and it's
very good lens that can be had for a lot less money. That combo would
give you almost the same capability and cut your cost by 1/3 to 1/2.
On 7/6/2013 10:26 AM, Aahz Maruch wrote:
On Sat, Jul 06, 2013, Bruce Walker wrote:
On Sat, Jul 6, 2013 at 2:37 AM, Aahz Maruch <a...@pobox.com> wrote:
On Sat, Jul 06, 2013, J.C. O'Connell wrote:
On 7/6/2013 2:19 AM, Aahz Maruch wrote:
On Sat, Jul 06, 2013, Bipin Gupta wrote:
What Aahz, whats this "would need to get a K-5 first... ;-)" ?? With
prices hitting the bottom most at around $ 600 please grab one.
You wont regret it. Even the K-5 II is hardly $ 70 more than the K-5.
The problem isn't the body, it's the glass. I don't own any Pentax
equipment currently (I rented for my cruise), and I haven't decided yet
what kind of equipment I want to get medium-term.
If I was starting from scratch, I would go with NIkon, better range of
dslrs and you can use newer af glass, as well as vintage mf glass.
No FF with Pentax, no vintage mf glass with Canon.
Nikon weather-resistant lenses are more spendy than Pentax, I don't care
about FF, I like in-camera shake reduction for prime lenses, and I have
a soft spot for Pentax because I grew up with it. Basically, my choices
boil down to Pentax, m4/3, or high-end P&S with occasional equipment
rental when I need the best (the last is what I'm currently doing).
As I mentioned in another post recently, my impression is that long-term
(more than 5-10 years out), *all* the camera makers are poor bets due to
likely technological disruption, which makes me leery of investing in
glass.
5-10 years out you could be bored with photography, blind or dead. Buy
glass now while you can still enjoy it. :-)
Right -- the question is whether I'll enjoy the glass enough over 5-10
years. The way I think about stuff like this, I guess/calculate how much
it costs per hour. So a movie these days is about $10-$15/hour (ticket
plus munchies). So let's look at how much "basic" Pentax gear would cost
me, assuming I buy new (all Amazon prices, rounding to nearest $50):
K-5 II with 18-135 WR $1150
DA* 60-250 $1350
D-FA 100mm macro WR $700
That's $3200, divide by $25/hour and that's 128 hours. So I'd need to
use that for at least 25 hours per year over five years to get my
money's worth. And that's rock-bottom minimum, I'd really want a
normal or wide-angle lens F2.8 or wider. Buying used would save some
money at the cost of time (keh.com doesn't have them all right now and a
used 60-250 isn't much cheaper than new).
Then there's the fact that I rented two bodies for the cruise, and it's
really really handy to not switch lenses...
Normally I wouldn't be quite so rigorous in my analysis, but that much
money makes me think, especially when I already have equipment that gives
me about eighty percent of this capability (and is significantly better
in some respects, namely bulk/weight/convenience: Nikon P7100, Canon G1X
with 250D closeup lens, and a Fuji X-S1 that arrives Tuesday). So
really, that's 25 hrs/yr *in addition* to what I'm already doing for
taking photos. Makes it a lot harder to justify to myself.
--
There are two kinds of computer users those who've experienced a hard drive
failure, and those that will.
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