Originally posted by edri I have a BF dilemma. to buy or not to buy this 20-40mm zoom..... lately the most used lens was the 18-135mm zoom.
I bought the 18-135 for our holiday to Jordan in 2011 - I was pleased with the results especially as I was still learning digital.
I continued to use it through to 2014 including a trip to Iceland and another to Rome; then the 20-40 arrived on the scene. There was a fair bit of wailing about the short range and the lack of constant aperture but it held my interest enough to order one after trying it at a show in Southampton.
Reasoning for buying:
- Very pleased with 18-135 images but... all the good ones were from Jordan and Rome with some others in UK on Sunny days.
- I was not at all happy with the images from Iceland - even those made with a tripod. None of my images at night (handheld) were up to much.
- It was a limited lens and it handled like one ( I already had the 15/35/70) when I tried it, plus the weather sealing made it equivalent to the 18-135 on that basis.
- Probably the reason with the most weight behind it came about after I made some smart collections in Lightroom based on focal lengths used for 18-135 images. It was then that I found over 60% of images were in the 18-40 range; a quarter of the remaining 40% were around the 70mm mark. This meant that I wasn't using the rest of the range much anyway. I recommend this step above all others.
After 3 and a half years now, the 20-40mm is my most used lens - a film equivalent of 30-60 is very handy for general shooting. It has done what I wanted it to do and as a bonus has beautiful colours and rendering (to my eye - I appreciate these things are subjective). I still have the 18-135 and take it out on nice days but when I get home and look at the images there are always one or two where the thought comes ... I wish I'd taken the 20-40.
I had initially thought to use the 20-40 with the 15 and 70 limiteds. It hasn't really worked out that way though; my favourite combo has become the 20-40 and the DFA100macro.
One last thing: I do not use the hood. Because of owning the 18-135 first I had 62mm filters. So, although I use a 55mm polariser, my "hood" (almost exactly the same) is a 55-58 plus 58-62 step up ring to use my existing ND filters.
Reasons for you not to buy:
- The majority of your 18-135 images are taken between 40 and 135mm.
- You're thinking about buying the K1
Below are two examples of what this lens does well, both handheld, that I, at least, struggle to do with the 18-135
Night:
Difficult Light:
Good luck thinking about it