[daleroy]

Hello

I've got a GX10 and a bunch of lens:

FA35
DA* 50-135
Tamron 28-75mm
DA 16-45mm
DA 18-55 (Kit lens)

I've only just got the 16-45mm today and to be honest, I'm not super impressed with it's sharpness. The Tamron at f4 is in a different league IMO. I do however need something that's wider than 28mm for landscapes etc, but I can't decide what to buy. Any help greatly appreciated.

The way I see it is I can either:

a) Sell the 16-45mm and the kit lens (never use it anyway) and put the money towards a Sigma 10-20mm or a DA 12-24mm.
b) Sell the Tamron and the 16-45mm and the kit lens and buy a DA* 16-50mm

I'd love to do option b, due to it pairing nicely with my other DA* lens, but I'm worried about getting a bad copy and it's too expensive in AUS to buy here, so I would have to buy it overseas. It would also have to be sharper at 2.8 than my Tamron.

If I go option A, is either of the lens going to be a lot sharper/better IQ than the 16-45mm? To be honest, I find the IQ on it only slightly better than the kit lens and would be dissappointed with a lens that isn't on par at least with the Tamron at f4. As far as I can tell, there's no real good f2.8 lens in that range, even the DA* 16-50 is not real sharp. I'll happily use my 50-135mm at f2.8 and find it very usable.

In terms of 'wideness', I'd be happy with 16 I suppose, if it's very good quality, but have no problems with a wider lens

[Stratario]

I decided to keep the Tamron. It's a full frame lens just in case Pentax developes a full frame body it might come handy. I thought about the sigma 10-20 and the Pentax 12-24 long and hard. I think the Pentax is a little faster but it is over $600. I decided that 17mm was wide enough for my purposes. So I orderd a Sigma 17-35 from eBay for $209. This is a full frame lens also and although on full frame the edge sharpness is not great, I figured on APC-S sensors the edges would have great sharpness.

The sigma USA web site has sharpness charts for all Sigma lenses. You can compare the sharpness of the full frame Sigma 17-35 with Sigma 17-70 and 18-50 Macro.

[gnaztee]

I owned the 16-45 and the 28-75 at the same time and sold the 16-45 for the 12-24. I find the 12-24 noticeably sharper than the 16-45 was from 16-24. I don't know that any ultra wide zoom will be as sharp as the Tamron, simply because of the difficulty in making wider, rectilinear lenses (I gather this from what I've read by smart people on these forums). But, the DA 12-24 seems to be as sharp as anything in its class. As far as F/2.8, if you're shooting landscapes, I wouldn't worry about this anyway.

Todd