[biphers]

Well, there I was, sitting in the car, online on my iPad, unsuspecting, researching what else but..... when the cell phone rang. It was Frank from Adorama with an offer on my [very slightly] used Olympus gear. Darn them and their generosity!

So, selling Oly E30, 12-60, 9-18, 70-300, couple of flashes, grip, etc. ORDERED a K-5/18-55 kit ($1598) and extended warranty. Should be here Friday

Now I need to figure how to replicate the functionality of my Oly kit. Near as I can figure, there is no lens to duplicate the Oly 12-60. This is the hardest part of the defection. I want a walk around lens that is sharp wide open across the range, weather resistant, with range about 16-70mm- ish in Aps-c speak (oh and f2.8 would be nice). Looked at every test report I can find and can't fall in love with anything. Really could use some feedback from you folks. (sigma, tamron, pentax??)

Replacing the Tele zoom isn't hard, neither will the ultra wide be. Flashes? I'm thinking Metz.

Look forward to some heated discussion here, but be gentle, I'm still a virgin here. (And please no Olympus bashing, unless absolutely necessary
Thanks for reading!

[JeffJS]

Welcome to the club..

Since your Olympus was a 2x crop(?) your 12-60 in 35mm terms would be 24-120. At the 1.5x of the Pentax, 16-80. The closest you are going to get to that, in a WR f2.8 lens, is the DA*16-50 f2.8.

Enjoy your new camera..

[ozlizard]

Welcome to the world of Pentaxia!
You won't get any Oly bashing from me, my first two digitals were Olys, and they were very good. Hope you enjoy your new K5.
As for lenses you could have a look at the Sigma's (24-70, or if you want something really wide the 10-20!). I can vouch for the 10-20 but I know quite a few of their lenses are well thought of. The Pentax 16-135 or 16-50 could also be good options, but I am sure their are more knowledgable people on here than me to help you with that!

[Class A]

Welcome to the forum!

Near as I can figure, there is no lens to duplicate the Oly 12-60.

In APS-C land this is ~15-77.

The closest I can think of is the Pentax 17-70 f/4.
Perhaps a bit too slow for you.

Most other zooms that are this wide and f/2.8 don't reach to 70mm.

Have a look at this comparison between the Pentax 16-50/2.8, Tamron 17-50/2.8, and Sigma 18-50/2.8. The Tamron does get a lot of praise from Pentaxians but in the comparison the Sigma came out very well too. I was surprised by how comparatively bad the Pentax 16-50 came out. It gets a lot more praise then these results would warrant. Not sure where the problem is. Perhaps they used a bad copy (quite possible, there were a number of QC issues with this lens in the beginning).

I'm afraid of the ones I mentioned, only the Pentax 16-50 is weather resistant.

BTW, the f/2.8 on the wide end of the 12-60 Oly lens translate to f/3.6 in APS-C land. So you might not need an f/2.8 zoom? So you might even want to consider a weather-sealed 18-50 kit lens? In terms of IQ, it won't be up to par with the f/2.8 zooms I listed above.

Flashes? I'm thinking Metz.

Good choice.
Sigma flashes might be cheaper?

To address the longer range, you could go for the Pentax 60-250 if you've got the dosh, or the Pentax 55-300. AFAIC, the latter is a steal for the price.

For the wide end, I'd recommend a Sigma 10-20. It comes in two versions (f/4-5.6 or constant f/3.5), both are great.

Finally, one of the niceties about being a Pentaxian is to be able to mount one of their nice primes. So once you've sorted your "go to" lenses have a look at these too. I'd love to have a FA 77/1.8 and the FA 43 and FA 31 are too die for too.

Hope you'll have fun with your new Pentax gear.

EDIT: Sorry for the repeating some of the things the previous posters said. When I started to compile this post there were no replies yet.

---

Last edited by Class A; 12-10-2010 at 06:47 PM.

[nulla]

Welcome to the club..

Since your Olympus was a 2x crop(?) your 12-60 in 35mm terms would be 24-120. At the 1.5x of the Pentax, 16-80. The closest you are going to get to that, in a WR f2.8 lens, is the DA*16-50 f2.8.

Enjoy your new camera..

Welcome and I agree with this... the 16-50 is my most used zoom.... but its well behind usage of my primes

cheers

Neil

[Helen Oster]

Well, there I was, sitting in the car, online on my iPad, unsuspecting, researching what else but..... when the cell phone rang. It was Frank from Adorama with an offer on my [very slightly] used Olympus gear. Darn them and their generosity!

Good to see that Frank is on the ball!

[Schraubstock]

Well, there I was, sitting in the car, online on my iPad, unsuspecting, researching what else but..... when the cell phone rang. It was Frank from Adorama with an offer on my [very slightly] used Olympus gear. Darn them and their generosity!

So, selling Oly E30, 12-60, 9-18, 70-300, couple of flashes, grip, etc. ORDERED a K-5/18-55 kit ($1598) and extended warranty. Should be here Friday

Now I need to figure how to replicate the functionality of my Oly kit. Near as I can figure, there is no lens to duplicate the Oly 12-60. This is the hardest part of the defection. I want a walk around lens that is sharp wide open across the range, weather resistant, with range about 16-70mm- ish in Aps-c speak (oh and f2.8 would be nice). Looked at every test report I can find and can't fall in love with anything. Really could use some feedback from you folks. (sigma, tamron, pentax??)

Replacing the Tele zoom isn't hard, neither will the ultra wide be. Flashes? I'm thinking Metz.

Look forward to some heated discussion here, but be gentle, I'm still a virgin here. (And please no Olympus bashing, unless absolutely necessary
Thanks for reading!

Hi biphers
I'll buy my K-5 next week but in the meantime I use on my K-7 a Tamron SP 24-135 AF IF 1:3.5-5.6 This lens can't wait to bond with the new K-5. This is a very capable lens. Unfortunately it is no longer in production but you can still find them on the net. They are not cheap usually but this is only because they are so good. The lens is solid, heavy and is build like a tank.

[Ash]

Alternatively, if you don't like prime lenses (my favoured suggestion), you might find the combination of DA 12-24 and Tamron 28-75 worthy of your utility. The Tamron gives you f/2.8 throughout the focal range whilst the 12-24 gives you ultrawide angles and top IQ, even though it's an f/4 lens.

[jolepp]

Welcome biphers!

@Class A:

...
BTW, the f/2.8 on the wide end of the 12-60 Oly lens translate to f/3.6 in APS-C land.
...

How does this happen? :-o (I mean I thought this is simply a diameter/length ratio?)

[bdery]

The 12-60 from Oly yields the field of view of 24-120 in 35 mm terms.

the new 18-135 (yielding 27-203) is close, and it's WR. Otherwise the high-quality DA* 16-50 WR f2.8 would be a good choice too.

[nickthetasmaniac]

BTW, the f/2.8 on the wide end of the 12-60 Oly lens translate to f/3.6 in APS-C land. So you might not need an f/2.8 zoom? So you might even want to consider a weather-sealed 18-50 kit lens? In terms of IQ, it won't be up to par with the f/2.8 zooms I listed above.

In terms of DoF you're right. In terms of light gathering ability you're wrong...

For an actual exposure, f2.8 is f2.8 is f2.8 regardless of format; be it 4/3, APS, FF or MF...



In response to the OP, I went the other way; started off with Pentax (K20D, DA* 16-50/f2.8, DA* 50-135/f2.8 and DA Ltd 35/f2.8) then changing to Olympus (E-3, ZD 12-60, ZD 50-200). To be honest there is no equivalent to the 12-60 in any mount, including Pentax. That lens is simple a gem in the dSLR market.

That said, image quality from the DA* 16-50 is similar and it's also faster at the long end, although you lose some range and the build quality isn't quite as good.

The DA 12-24/f4 has slightly better IQ and built quality than the ZD 9-18. It's also a little faster, but then it's a tad more expensive too so keep that in mind...

The DA 55-300 is the closest you'll get to the ZD 70-300, but bear in mind that the difference in crop means you lose the equivalent of 150mm in reach, which may or may not be an issue... If you can afford it the DA* 60-250/f4 is well worth a look for your telephoto. It's very similar to the ZD 50-200/f2.8-3.5 is you have any experience with that lens.


As other's have said though, the real gem of the Pentax line-up is the primes, especially the DA and FA Ltd's and the new D-FA 100/f2.8 Macro.

[Impartial]

Note that if you are worried about the long end, you can pick up a 1.7x teleconverter from Pentax which in addition to its excellent optics, adds AF functionality to MF lenses. It does not seem to be sold through official channels outside Japan, but i is readily available e.g. here on the Marketplace.

For your walkaround, if DoF is not the main requirement, you might give a serious look to the new 18-135. Although it is a variable aperture zoom, the extra length means that it is f3.5-4.5 for the area you are most interested in. With the high-ISO competence of the current Pentax cameras, those apertures should be enough even in lower light. And in Pentax-land, shallow DoF effects are probably best achieved through primes, especially manual focus primes.

Welcome to a DSLR line where you can look forward to new cameras, once in a while . . .

[panoguy]

In terms of DoF you're right. In terms of light gathering ability you're wrong...

For an actual exposure, f2.8 is f2.8 is f2.8 regardless of format; be it 4/3, APS, FF or MF...

Yep, there is frequently confusion on this subject. By comparison, a medium format "fast" portrait lens is an f2.8 150mm prime. To get similar DOF on an APS-C Pentax, you'd need to grab the f1.2 50mm (even if the focal lengths don't match precisely).

So yes, the shutter speeds can be faster and ISO lower on the f1.2 on APS-C (due to "light-gathering ability"), but the real reason medium-format still rocks for portraiture - ever try to manually focus an f1.2 lens in the viewfinder of an APS-C camera? Squintyeyes!

To the OP: enjoy the world of Pentax! Like lots of others say, "it's all about the primes!"

[Eric Seavey]

Flashes? I'm thinking Metz.

Metz makes great flashes! I have the Metz 58AF-1, which is powerful, flexible and has a second reflector.

[biphers]

Thanks to all who responded.

I really appreciate the input, keep it coming. I don't have much time right now to reply to all the ideas, but I'm getting some better idea of which direction to go on lenses.

look forward to trying everything out!