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I think I've been swayed. I think I'm going to start looking at a prime or two for now. After reading the comments here, and reading reviews elsewhere it seems like it would be a bit of a waste to buy a cheap/mid price all-purpose lens. I'm going to look at some of the 35mm Primes out there. I do a lot of architectural detail with an occasional city scene (looking down a street, skyline shot, etc). The increased sharpness on a quality prime could really do wonders for my architectural photos and as Mathjak suggested, walking a bit can cover the same bases a short range zoom would cover. I have no problem with that. Worst case, I don't like it and sell it. I'd rather give a nice prime a try before dropping $500 on a possibly mediocre lens.
most photographers ultimately end up with 2 sets of lenses,..a set of low light , light weight primes for traveling light and touring where you may be in a museum with no flash allowed one second and shooting buildings in bright sun in another. also a set of high quality zooms for those days when shooting on a tripod close to the car or where you cant step forward or back.
the issue is the really good ,full frame capable zooms are soooooo heavy. the nikon 14-24 f2.8, 24-70mm f2.8 and the 80-200 or 70-200mm f2,8 are as good as it gets but they arent much fun dragging around all day . they will set you back almost 2k each and just annoy you by the end of the day from the weight.
the 16-35mm is a little lighter and smaller but optically its still behind the 14-24mm in quality. thats about 1100-1200.00 bucks . i think the 35mm f1.8 has them all beat
Last edited by mathjak107; 11-04-2010 at 02:42 AM..
I think I've been swayed. I think I'm going to start looking at a prime or two for now. After reading the comments here, and reading reviews elsewhere it seems like it would be a bit of a waste to buy a cheap/mid price all-purpose lens. I'm going to look at some of the 35mm Primes out there. I do a lot of architectural detail with an occasional city scene (looking down a street, skyline shot, etc). The increased sharpness on a quality prime could really do wonders for my architectural photos and as Mathjak suggested, walking a bit can cover the same bases a short range zoom would cover. I have no problem with that. Worst case, I don't like it and sell it. I'd rather give a nice prime a try before dropping $500 on a possibly mediocre lens.
a 24mm f2.8 and 35mm f1.8 will cost you less then a mediocre zoom and offer quality and low light ability way beyond.
^Thanks. I hadn't even looked at primes before this thread, so I don't really know where to start. Beginning my research now. Looking at some sample shots from the 35mm (Amazon) I see a lot of what I'd probably be shooting and it looks great. Of course, the lens will only get me so far!
I disagree slightly with mathjak. Instead of two primes, I'd say get one prime (something like a 35mm) and one wide-angle zoom (something like 10-20mm). You could get Canon's 35mm f/2 prime for about $300 new, around $200 used. Sigma's 10-20mm costs a little under $500 new, around $350 used. For ~$500, that will give you a good range for urban shots.
that sigma was one of the ones i sold off... that superwide look was okay for special shots but i found i rarely used it as anything i would take as a walk around lens . it spent to much time not being used and so it went bye bye . the distortions were a pain to work with . i find the 24mm much more useful as something i use all the time.. id say 90% of all my photography is the 24mm and 35mm.
if i was to get a zoom id go with the nikon 16-35mm which would be great on the full frame d700. for dx i loved my 17-55 but that was pretty heavy and pretty expensive and i found a few steps forward or back really covered the entire range and so i sold that too and went to try life with primes. my 35mm has 4x the light gathering abilty of that $1300.00 17-55mm f2.8.
so far i havent missed the zooms at all and we shoot alot.
Last edited by mathjak107; 11-04-2010 at 03:23 PM..
that sigma was one of the ones i sold off... that superwide look was okay for special shots but i found i rarely used it as anything i would take as a walk around lens . it spent to much time not being used and so it went bye bye . the distortions were a pain to work with .
That's too bad. Wide-angle lenses definitely require looking at and composing scenes differently (compared to a "standard" lens), but once you get the hang of it, you can get great shots, especially in an urban environment.
A quick search on Flickr reveals many examples of wide-angle shots in all types of urban environments (and MUCH better than my examples!):
- Times Square (http://www.flickr.com/photos/lisa568/4164514769/ - broken link)
- London (http://www.flickr.com/photos/essexdiver/3908141588/ - broken link) (<-- this person has a great set shot with the Sigma 10-20 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/essexdiver/sets/72157610577114827/show/ - broken link))
you are most correct about the superwides having a learning curve.
most folks end up with landscapes with gobs of empty space in the foreground..thats not what they are for . to use them correctly you have to get really close . i would try to always have something coming out of the lower corners of the pictures with no empty space.
its not easy but once you get the hang of framing scenes you get better at it.
Just to clarify: I'm not suggesting the Sigma 10-22 as a single walk-around lens. If you really want a single lens, then I'd suggest a prime as well (with Canon's 24-105L as a close second). If you're carrying two, then a prime + an ultra wide-angle. It all boils down to your shooting style. It is often very interesting and educational to go on a photo sharing site (e.g. Flickr) and search on a particular city/landmark/area (say Times Square) to see the different ways different photographers have captured it using different lenses and different settings.
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