Originally posted by emr
I'll borrow this fine thread instead of starting one more.
Damn, I'm getting crazy trying to figure out the "wide question". I was today visiting a tourist attraction, a "castle" made of snow and ice. As I was traveling light, I only had my K20D and DA 40mm with me and unfortunately the 40mm turned out to be uncomfortably long both inside and outside. There's the kit zoom naturally, but I had figured it's not fast enough aperture-wise and it's really not that wide to begin with. So what on earth should I get? Both of the Sigma 10-20mm zooms would probably do fairly well, but the old one isn't very fast and they're both a bit bigger than I'd like. Pentax 12-24mm is way too expensive today and too big also. DA 14mm f/2.8 is fairly tempting in many ways, but even it is a bit on the big side and for some reason I'm not sure it's worth the price today. My gut feeling is that a 700€ ($950) lens should have limited build quality or weather sealing atleast. All the conclusions above tend to lead me in one direction: the DA 15mm ltd. But I'm still not sure. Is 15mm wide enough? Is f/4 fast enough? And will there soon be a UWA lens with WR to suit my weather resistant camera bodies?
Boy, this is difficult. Or perhaps I just make it difficult.
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I find 15mm sufficient for just about anything I run in to - however, there are situations where you just need very wide angle, and for that you need at least 12mm, IMO.
But really, for general shooting, I'd look into the Tamron 17-50 2.8 - fast, sharp, versatile, and 17mm is pretty wide. prodigital2000 has them for $389 or so.
The DA 15 is a stunner, and is very useful to have along in the bag in case you may need WA, or to just keep on your camera as a take-everywhere photographic tool.
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