Originally posted by war eagle: My dilemma is actually whether to buy something in the 16-50 with a larger aperture than what I have or a prime. Having no prime lens, I keep reading about the "tack sharp" abilities of these lens and I have lens envy. How do you make that call? I feel like I'm in that kids' book, "I you give a mouse a cookie, he wants a glass of milk." As soon as I buy one thing, i think, but wait... I want this too! Oh my gosh! This addiction must stop!
Maybe I should find the thread/group for: "Hi, My name is Susan and I buy camera equipment." ;-)
Well, Susan, after a while tack sharp lenses becomes an obsession for us all, no doubt about it! And fast, sharp, lenses even more so! Long, fast and sharp, lenses cost a lot, sadly a fact of life. Short, sharp, lenses can be quite affordable, if you buy carefully.
I returned to SLR stuff, through my K-x, and the second lens I bought was the DA40 - I still got both! Most of the other Pentax stuff have been sold off, including the K-7 and the K-5.
I got into digital compacts, a few years after I met my wife, and then, through a series of P&S cameras decided I had had enough. Give me a DSLR, and I'll be happy ever-after! The choice fell on the K-x, as it had a fast sensor, combined with a low price, compared to the other cameras I considered (E-P1, D300S and a few more). The E-P1 had no viewfinder, the D300S was a bit too hefty for my taste then, and so on).
I became an avid Pentax guy, using my saved money on lenses, camera bodies, and other Pentax gear. I was eventually very happy with my K-5, and till this day I think that Pentax have the best arrangement of buttons, thumb-wheels, options, and menu system you can find, except in the K-7, and the K-5 II, of course. I said to my wife I'll keep it till the day I die, and my wife got her own, as well. My wife returned to cameras with exchangeable lenses through the E-PL1, and while that got no or very little use after she got her Pentax, she had by then a small, but good, selection of lenses for it.
Then Steve Huff (
Steve Huff Photo - Camera and Lens Reviews. Leica, Olympus, Sony, Nikon, Pentax, Canon and more! ) came into my life, and he told me that there are other cameras to consider, although he was, and is, a Leica fan, first and foremost. But he taught me, through his site, the reason why really sharp lenses (especially those that are sharp at full aperture) are from heaven, but that they don't have to be for one make of camera, you can use a mix, if that suits you! He lured me to buy a NEX-5N, and a XZ-1, and introduced the wife to the OM-D E-M5, and so on.
So I eventually evolved my lens and camera collecting, restricting myself to lenses not weighing, nor costing, a lot of money. So the big zooms, like the superb Sigma 150-500, that I used on my K-5, no longer have a home here - while small cheap lenses are very welcome, like Sigma's small primes for the NEX and m43 cameras, superbly sharp (if not that fast), but costing just around $200!
I've come to the conclusion, that the smaller the sensor, the longer the lenses can be, and still give me very sharp shots, that is, still give justifying result! So I mostly use my Nikon V1 when I bring along the Nikon AF-S 70-300 VR, which is a so-so zoom on my D600, but tack sharp on the V1, as the lens is very good in the center, but fairly mediocre at the edges!
This also means that my package isn't that heavy, even when I want to cover anything from really wide to extremely long telephoto, using primes (from 24 to 85) on my full format, a short zoom, or a prime, on the APS-C cameras, and the longer lenses on the CX format (that is the sensor size in my V1). None of the combos (lens + camera) weighs much over a kilogram (2 lbs). Normally I bring two different sized cameras, each with one, or the most, two lenses. Very seldom i do change lenses when I'm out photographing, but often change cameras. The lightest package is the K-x + DA40, and the V1+ 30-110, the heaviest two-camera+two-lens kit being the D600 + Samyang 24, together with the V1 + FT1 adapter + Kenko 1.4X + Nikon 400/5.6 - both of these latter best with a tripod, as the Samyang is totally manual, and that V1 combo equals a 1500mm lens on the D600!
Sadly, Pentax just makes APS-C DSLR/mirrorless cameras, unless you count the Q, whose lenses seem to be pretty sharp, but the sensor is just quite a bit too small for my liking!
