Originally posted by GlassJunkie Norm, The 15-30 is very well executed, performs well, and will provide extra ballast in our kayaks.... Very happy with it. Some are floating around the secondary market for ~100usd
I got some parking lot time (waiting for the Pine Martens to come) with a guy who owns one, and he raved about it for like 15 minutes. (It's amazing how 15 minutes in a parking lot with some guy makes a deeper impression than a hundred internet posts.)
This guy proudly showing off his DFA 150-450.
...but I have trouble finding room for my Sigma 8-16 and it is 555 grams. The 15-30 is 1040, almost twice the weight. On portages I usually carry my camera pack with my canoe and come back for the other packs with tents clothing and food in them. So without the camera gear I'm already carrying close 50- 70 pounds before camera gear i added in. And I've seen comparison images between my Sigma 8-16 on the K-3 and my client's D800 and 14-30, so I'm well aware of how much difference it can make. To me, it's not worth an extra pound. Especially given that during one amazing sunset with a demonstration of canoe skill extraordinaire going on as a show for some summer campers out on the lake, he didn't have his 14-30 because he deemed it too heavy to carry (Translate, up to his point he'd lugged it all over the place and never used it.)
this one
He also missed out on this shot for the same reason...
Don't even start the "zoom with your feet" nonsense. I'm at 8mm and there's lake with a pretty brutal current right behind me. I'm set up as far out into the lake as I can safely stand. The path up to this waterfall, is an uncleared rough boulder hopping, stream crossing nightmare for a guy where a pack with 15 pounds of camera gear. You have to get under things, you have to get over things, you have to squeeze through tight places. when people say "I can carry the extra weight", I usually just button my lip. That's not what it's about, and except for this once, I'm not even going to try and explain what it's about. It's not only the weight it's also your personal safety, and as a guide I'm responsible for that. A client taking my advice lightly, well, I will let you cause yourself as much pain as I think is good for you, but I won't let you risk life and limb, and on some of my bushwhacks too heavy a camera bag is just that. A risk to life and limb. And even with the pain thing, once I think you've suffered enough I step in a cover for your arrogance. I know it really sucks that I have to suffer a bit because of someone else's pig headed arrogance, but, that's the burden of being the expert. I took you in, and I promise to get you out, on time.
I have no use for people who want to be in the bush but expect soon else to do all the work for them to be there. Most guides these days don't. The old generation of guides who were essentially servants to rich people who wanted all the luxuries of home in the bush are long one. There's only a few of them left. I'm more like a coach who is going to help you work your ass off.
This guy was paying me about $200 a day to get him to these places, and he was missing images because his gear was too heavy to carry. So I knoweth of what I speak. It amazes me how cavalier people are about extra weight. The whole macho "extra weight doesn't bother me thing." That's exactly what this client said, when I said he was taking too much weight.This is just the internet and people can say what ever they want without consequences, out where I live, there's a price to be paid for not listening, and I won't be the one paying it. I'll be the one there trying really hard not to say "I told you so."
This guy brought his daughter and brother on a trip with me the next year. At one point there was a discussion about whether to camp in a crappy spot, or move on another Km to a campsite that offered excellent photo opportunities. The guy's brother tried to force the group to stop, because everyone was dog tired. I was recommending moving on, his brother looks at him for an opinion. Without even looking up the guy said, "I'm doing what he says" pointing at me. In those situations it doesn't take long for a smart guy (this guy is the Chief Operating Officer of a major computer hardware company) to learn his lessons, because if you don't it costs you pain, not me, not anyone else, the guy who won't listen. Here the guys that don't listen con a lot of people into thinking they have a point and that they are some kind of camera guru's. It's an imaginary universe where posturing and antagonism are mistaken for knowledge, one i grow increasingly tired of.
I'll make your dinner, rent you a tent and sleeping bag etc. and cook your food, but I won't carry your gear. Well I guess I would, but I'd be looking to make $500 a day per person, and I'd hire help if there was more than 1, not $200. And the client wouldn't cover much ground, I'm only good for maybe 6 km of portages a day. If i do 4 portages instead of 2 that's 1.5 Km instead of 3. Many portages are 3 km long, so it really limits what you can do in a trip.
To my mind, I wouldn't get enough out of the K-1 and 15-30 as compared to images taken with the k-3 and Sigma 8-16 to justify carrying a lens as heavy as the 15-30. But I doubt there's another guy in the world who does what I do, so I'm not saying anyone else out there who should use me as an example. I'm just saying...
The problem is my K-3 and Sigma 8-16 gets the job done to my satisfaction, to the point, I'd rather use the K-1 in crop mode and the Sigma 8-16 than carry around another big huge 2 pound lens. I'm also taking the DA*200 instead of the 60-250 to cut another half pound in the future. True bush people are always looking for ways to cut weight. Cutting weight means a more pleasurable less painful experience. (And I don't care who you are, there's going to be pain.) This year there will not be a lens in my kit that weighs over 1.5 pounds or 750 grams, yet I'll be covering 8mm to 476mm K-3mm, or 12-750 K-1 millimetres, in about 4 pounds of gear.
So anyone who wants to bring a 15-30 on a tip along with the 24-70 70-200 and and 150 450, I won't step in and physically try and stop you. I'll tell you once. But you won't take them everywhere we go, and you are going to be seriously regretting you brought such heavy gear. I've seen it, with guys who told me what great shape they were in and how they din't mind carrying the extra weight. Been there, done that , seen it all before.
Posted just in case you thought this was one of those flippant internet opinions based on next to nothing.
It's nice we could have this little chat.