Originally posted by fevbusch I have a k100d with 18-55 kit lens , but I want a little more zoom. It is important for me to shoot flowers with butterflies and other interesting small things. I had a Canon S2is that had great macro ability.
I was deciding between a Pentax 28-105mm 3.2-4.5 lens vs. the current 50-200 ED glass zoom from Pentax. I have been hearing wonderful things about the 50-200, and would lean toward that lens .
Freddy,
I don't know where you are going, but I do know exactly where you're coming from. Before I got my K100D about six weeks ago, I had the Canon PowerShot S1 IS, then the S2 IS, then finally the S3 IS. I gave the S1 to my daughter, and sold the S2 and the S3 in order to buy the K100D. I'm very happy with my new camera, but there is simply no question that the Canon S-series fixed-lens cameras were remarkably versatile - great zoom, great macro, good mid-range, not to mention video! - and I miss some of that versatility with my K100D.
I bought the K100D with the kit lens, and the Pentax 50-200 lens was my second purchase. It's a fine lens, I took a few very good photos with it. Perhaps I should have kept it, but - perhaps because I was coming from the Canon S3, where I could go from very wide angle to pretty good telephoto in no time flat - I personally felt that using the 50-200 was a bit like trying to play the piano using just my right hand. I don't routinely need to go to 28mm or 18mm, but I do occasionally, and it's nice not to have to carry around a second lens just for that occasional purpose. And I do want to go down to 35 or 40mm pretty frequently. When I had only the kit lens (max FL = 55mm) and the 50-200, I felt like I wanted to switch lenses every five minutes while I was out taking photos.
So I sold the 50-200 to another photographer here on this forum who probably has a better idea what he's doing than I do, and I replaced it with two lenses, which I now think of as my indoors lens and my outdoors lens.
The indoor lens is a Sigma 28-70 which has a fixed max aperture of f/2.8 throughout the range. The 70mm max focal length is fine for indoor shooting, especially inside a home or classroom where I'm never far from the subject. I'm also using it in school gyms now to shoot fifth-grade basketball games. The limited range means I tend to do most of my shooting when the players are at my end of the court, but the results are pretty satisfactory. And I need that F2.8 max aperture, since I can't use a flash shooting basketball.
The "outdoor" lens is a
Tamron 18-200 F3.5-6.3 DiII lens, which provides pretty good pseudo-macro capability, as well as something similar to the zoom range that I used to have with my Canon S3. I use that lens now as my default walking-around lens, then lens I keep on the camera most of the time. With that lens on the camera, I'm ready for just about any kind of photo, either indoors (provided the light's good or I can use flash) or outdoors.
Here's the rub. With the Canon S2/S3, you had very few choices, although the few that you did have were pretty good. I owned both of the Canon extension lenses (the wide angle and the telephoto) and loved them. The total cost of my S3 system was under $700. It was extremely versatile, pretty powerful, and I took some photos that I'm rather pleased with using that camera. Now, with the K100D, getting something similar to the same versatility is rather more expensive. Perhaps if I knew in early December what I think I know now, I'd have bought the K100D body only and the Tamron 18-200 as my first lens. But with the digital SLR, you have a dizzying number of choices - and you soon feel like you need to get a second job to deal with them.
I can't tell you what you'll like, nobody can. But my GUESS - knowing that you are coming from a Canon S2 and knowing also that you like to shoot flowers and butterflies, etc. - my guess is that you'll be happier if you get yourself a zoom that goes from wide angle to some degree of telephoto and that includes some kind of macro capability as well. If you don't very often need some kind of telephoto capability, then there appear to be some good lenses in the 28-110 or similar range.
Will