Originally posted by builttospill That's funny, I consider the FA*24 to be one of my lightest lenses.
Certainly compared to my 80-200 it's small and light, but with the exception of the Limiteds, it's not very big on my K10D with attached grip.
Originally posted by eddie1960 Nikon come in at 620g on the 24mm 1.4, but hell it's 1.4 as well. the 24 2.8 comes in at only 270 grams and is pretty compact. both are FX. on a FF cam the 2.8 would meet most peoples needs since at 24 it's not about thin dof. the heavier one would provide subject isolation at closer quarters though (at the expense of weight)
the FA 24 looks like a good compromise in this case. still lighter and smaller than the 2.8 zooms that are ff in this range. (my sigma 24-70 comes in at 715gr. I'd rather carry the FA* any day
No to be silly, but only serious………
My point was that faster and wider = bigger.
Even changing the behind the lens concept town RF = the same dynamic.
Zeiss glass has always been the heavyweight. They have no internal motors, yet have always weighed a tonne.
FF is great, but striving for a very small body when your smallest glass is going to be 400+ grams and quite bulky goes against the grain. Compact 135 cameras like the MZ-S only came out in the 1990's when colour film ISO's increased to 400 easily pushed to 800) ISO. This allowed smaller lenses with the f/3.5 becoming very common as the right compromise between DOF, speed, size, cost and design matched tot he camera.
That still exists in APS-C land as witnessed by the Pentax primes. But FF DSLR gets to be an issue because the bodies have more bulk than film cameras, and fast 2.8 constant zooms are the dominant market lenses, and they have to be large. So a larger body is necessary for balance and structural integrity and power.
It's all about compromises.