[mhsp1948]

Sometimes You Just Need To Breath

Yes, sometimes you just need to breath and not be tangled up in all kinds of photography stuff like all your cameras, lenses and equipment. You have this trip or a schedule you have to take, which is not going to allow a lot of photography time. It will be point and shoot at times and rushing to get to something you see, but you have no time to leave the direction you are headed. Plus weather might not be good, you know like rain.

I just wrote a short summary on how I use my K1 MarkII and my HD Pentax-D FA* 50mm F1.4 SDM AW so as to get myself back into composition work and improving my technique. It has worked and I like taking my time with it. Well that won’t happen this week. I won’t have time to take my time. Travel and appointments and constantly on the go with a lot of driving and many stops.

I will have far off shots I can’t get to that I know are there and some close up tight shots and many others kind of shots I could take in between. So sitting in my office at my house and looking at all my cameras and lenses and trying to decide which camera and lens. I did not want a lot of weight, but I also did not want a small pocket point and shoot. I knew I would not have the time to leave my route and get to some of these places I would pass, so, I would need telephoto capability.

What do I do? I need to be able to breath on this trip while doing my work and not looking for different cameras or lenses, while rushing around and getting frustrated. In fact I don’t want to take a bunch of lenses and cameras with me. I need a camera and lens I can just throw around and not worry about. I needed a jack of all trades, both in camera and lens. It needs to give me decent photos while I am rushing through my week and not requiring special attention.

I walked over to my closet and was standing there looking at my cameras and lenses and then it hit me like a ton of bricks. There was my KP and just to the right of it were some lenses I hardly ever use and my eyes landed on the DA 18-35mm. That’s it, the KP and the DA 18-135mm. This will be my Jack of all trades setup and I hope it delivers. I will post some photos when I get back from my trip. Yes, know I can breath.

[normhead]

Sometimes You Just Need To Breath

Yes, sometimes you just need to breath and not be tangled up in all kinds of photography stuff like all your cameras, lenses and equipment. You have this trip or a schedule you have to take, which is not going to allow a lot of photography time. It will be point and shoot at times and rushing to get to something you see, but you have no time to leave the direction you are headed. Plus weather might not be good, you know like rain.

I just wrote a short summary on how I use my K1 MarkII and my HD Pentax-D FA* 50mm F1.4 SDM AW so as to get myself back into composition work and improving my technique. It has worked and I like taking my time with it. Well that won’t happen this week. I won’t have time to take my time. Travel and appointments and constantly on the go with a lot of driving and many stops.

I will have far off shots I can’t get to that I know are there and some close up tight shots and many others kind of shots I could take in between. So sitting in my office at my house and looking at all my cameras and lenses and trying to decide which camera and lens. I did not want a lot of weight, but I also did not want a small pocket point and shoot. I knew I would not have the time to leave my route and get to some of these places I would pass, so, I would need telephoto capability.

What do I do? I need to be able to breath on this trip while doing my work and not looking for different cameras or lenses, while rushing around and getting frustrated. In fact I don’t want to take a bunch of lenses and cameras with me. I need a camera and lens I can just throw around and not worry about. I needed a jack of all trades, both in camera and lens. It needs to give me decent photos while I am rushing through my week and not requiring special attention.

I walked over to my closet and was standing there looking at my cameras and lenses and then it hit me like a ton of bricks. There was my KP and just to the right of it were some lenses I hardly ever use and my eyes landed on the DA 18-35mm. That’s it, the KP and the DA 18-135mm. This will be my Jack of all trades setup and I hope it delivers. I will post some photos when I get back from my trip. Yes, know I can breath.

For myself, I've gotten in the habit of taking the DA 55-300 PLM along with it. But when I had a free place to live and sleep in Niagara Falls, my 18-135 was my most used lens, and many days I took 3 or 4 other lenses and never put them on the camera.

The biggest disadvantage to the K-1 is the inability to produce an 18-135 type lens with any quality at all.

[Kevin B123]

Works for me. For years I would just take a K-50 with 18-135 in a small bag. No hassle and decent quality.
I was going with K-1ii & DFA 50mm f2.8 until the last paragraph, but KP 18-135 is versatile.

[UncleVanya]

The biggest disadvantage to the K-1 is the inability to produce an 18-135 type lens with any quality at all.

A nicely up to date 28-200'ish with good quality but slowish aperture would be a great boon wouldn't it. Does any full frame system make a high quality compact lens like that?

Just saw this: https://petapixel.com/2020/06/19/tamron-28-200mm-first-look-the-best-all-in-...s-for-e-mount/

575g f2.8-5.6

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Last edited by UncleVanya; 06-24-2020 at 10:19 AM.

[normhead]

A nicely up to date 28-200'ish with good quality but slowish aperture would be a great boon wouldn't it. Does any full frame system make a high quality compact lens like that?

Just saw this: Tamron 28-200mm First Look: The Best All-In-One Lens for Sony E-Mount?

575g f2.8-5.6

Tamron 28-200mm F2.8-5.6 RXD Lens to be Announced on June 11, 2020 – Camera News at Cameraegg

Pentax licensed the last Tamron 28-200, I own one (terrible lens though nice rendering scaled to half size.)

If this coming one is any good at all, who knows?

They could license it to Pentax if it's any good.

[UncleVanya]

Tamron 28-200mm F2.8-5.6 RXD Lens to be Announced on June 11, 2020 – Camera News at Cameraegg

Pentax licensed the last Tamron 28-200, I own one (terrible lens though nice rendering scaled to half size.)

If this coming one is any good at all, who knows?

They could license it to Pentax if it's any good.

I thought it was a mirrorless only design. The samples in the Sony article seem quite good.

[UncleVanya]

On a trip to Paris and London I took a Panasonic LX-7. Of course that was in 2016 so it was a bit more relevant then, but it's equivalent range was roughly 24-105 depending on format of the aspect ratio etc. The 18-135 with the KP is roughly a 28-200mm perspective which should serve you well. The Panasonic while a faster lens has a slower smaller sensor, the KP should exceed the performance I got which was quite good for a travel camera.

[ramseybuckeye]

I just wrote a short summary on how I use my K1 MarkII and my HD Pentax-D FA* 50mm F1.4 SDM AW so as to get myself back into composition work and improving my technique. It has worked and I like taking my time with it. Well that won’t happen this week. I won’t have time to take my time. Travel and appointments and constantly on the go with a lot of driving and many stops.

I walked over to my closet and was standing there looking at my cameras and lenses and then it hit me like a ton of bricks. There was my KP and just to the right of it were some lenses I hardly ever use and my eyes landed on the DA 18-35mm. That’s it, the KP and the DA 18-135mm. This will be my Jack of all trades setup and I hope it delivers. I will post some photos when I get back from my trip. Yes, know I can breath.

I read your other thread and it made sense, but they say don't take a knife to a gun fight, good choice.

[mhsp1948]

ramseybuckeye, I will also shoot using manual I seem to get better results with my KP and the 18-135mm lens using manual mode.

[Sir Nameless]

Back in the 90's, I went on a 6-month deployment (with liberty in Portsmouth, London, Norway, Scotland, and Normandy) with only a film SLR with a 35-70. A few years later, it was a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Yosemite with the same setup. Those photos won't win any awards, but they are still special to me. No regrets.

You'll do just fine with your 18-135.

[skierd]

Trips like this are why I’ll never part with my 20-40 limited. If I need to go wider, I can always stitch together 9 or 12 shots in Lightroom later pretty easily. If I need to get closer, well, c’est la vie. Even on my iPhone, I’m mostly using the wide or regular lenses, hardly ever the telephoto except for portrait mode.

Canon’s 17-40 F4 has almost made me switch systems. A 11-27mm in apsc? Maybe I should try to find me a Pentax 12-24...


I’m usually happiest traveling with my Olympus XA loaded with Ektar 100 or Provia 100F however. 35mm lenses just works for me and how I see.

ramseybuckeye, I will also shoot using manual I seem to get better results with my KP and the 18-135mm lens using manual mode.

And I can recommend the 18-135 as well for your trip. As you discovered that you get better results with manual focusing, I by accident found out that the 18-135 is a great performer using live view. It is such a great lens and performs well on older camera's too. I originally bought it for the Samsung GX-10. My live view experiment was with a second hand K-7.

[RoxnDox]

My K-50 lives with its 18-135 almost all the time, except when I am playing with the 90mm macro... It’s a good combo!

[hjoseph7]

My K-50 lives with its 18-135 almost all the time, except when I am playing with the 90mm macro... It’s a good combo!

I learned the hard way that carrying a whole bunch of equipment while traveling is not going to get you better pictures and in fact might make things worse. All you will probably need is a lens or two that can cover the 24-105 range.

[boriscleto]

Most of the time the only lens I have with me besides the 150-450 is the 18-135. Sometimes it's just the 18-135 and 55-300.