Originally posted by Frekeman I love my DA21mm but I mostly do street photography and for my style it's just right. However, I sometimes use my DA15mm for the same purpose and it works too but it's a little trickier. However, if you don't do street and mostly want to capture architecture and scenery when in Spain I'd say go for the DA15mm. It would complement your DA35 better methinks. Good luck in your lens decision activity!
Cheers,
Fred
I have DA15, DA21, DA35 ltd, FA77, F135.
I have been to spain recently, Madrid, Toledo, Granada, Sevilla, Cordoba, Ronda and I used the DA15 the most. I agree that DA21 without context can get more jobs and is also easier to use, but really what lens to use depends both on your style and the type of subject you encounter.
DA15 is an UWA so the perspective are exagerated. Scenes do not look natural. What it provide through is you have the impression to be inside the scene and if you match that with careful composition you can get fantastic landscapes and architectural shots.
On the opposite, a tele does perspective compression, giving the impression the subject is far away. Depth almost disapear and this is used to benefit to hide/reduce features on people portraits.
A DA15 is usefull in spain and cities in general to capture big scene with high buildings and reproduce the sensation that you actually are in the city, surrounded by quite noticable monuments.
And there the DA15 specificities. The lens is extremely resistant to flare and very contrasty. It capture more dynamic range and while another lenses would give you burned highlights from lack of contrast control, DA15 will give you the true colors. On some scene you see the difference directly on the view finder. But the DA15 while quite sharp need to be stopped down for borders and field curvature can be anoying at time.
Anyway, this is a style some like it, some don't. If you buy a WA or UWA for the first time I would strongly advise to do 1 or 2 walk with it in a city before and maybe churches and so on to train a bit and accustom yourself to the different way to see the world they provide.
Here a few shots with DA15 from spain, I let you juge if you like the kind of picture it does or not or how you could have managed the shoot with a 35mm instead (hint: divide the picture size by 2 for both height and width and you get 30mm framing). By the way, you can click on the picture to get the full size version.