Going FF - need to settle on a lens-logic!

[dsiegel5151]

My two pennies (that really are probably only worth a hey penny) is that good-quality normal zooms are detrimental to every kit. When I say normal zooms, I mean the 24mm to 200mm range. Having the best quality zooms in that range is a "must have" for me. Thus, I have the 24-70 f2.8L and 70-200 f2.8L IS II (although the old 24-70 is probably not the king in this class anymore, as the new 24-70 is most likely better). These lenses are on my cameras 75% of the time. To me, everything else I purchase is for specialty purposes only, and for these purposes I buy prime lenses. I like to shoot salamanders and lizards, so I bought a macro lens. I like to shoot birds, so I bought a 400mm lens. Occasionally I shoot indoors, so I bought a fast 50mm (f1.4). When hiking, 99% of things that I shoot can be taken with the 70-200 (+ an extension tube). When walking around a city, 99% of the things that I shoot can be taken with the 24-70. It's only when I go out for a specific reason that I take my specialty prime lenses. Thus, to me, in this era of high quality zooms, I can't see why you would start a kit without filling in the 24-200mm range with the fewest amount of high quality zooms possible first. Yeah, the 70-200mm is heavy. But to me, it's more easily packable than three prime lenses and more convenient because I don't have to change lenses all the time. Granted, this wasn't always the case, as the quality of zooms used to be quite poor in comparison to primes. My travel kit for my 35mm Canon ftb was a 28mm f2.8, 50mm f1.4, and a 135mm f2.

....

Now, if all you want to do is shoot wide angle landscapes, then just get the best landscape lens possible (I'd probably get a tilt-shift lens). Obviously the 24mm f1.4 II prime is going to outperform the the 24-70 f2.8L at 24mm, as it was designed specifically to provide the best image quality at that focal length. I just can't imagine that anybody building a kit would want to be locked into one focal length when there are very high quality zooms available that are much more convenient, and for the most part, provide images that are indistinguishable to 95% of people.

Have fun deciding.

[FastGass]

I couldn't agree more with dsiegel5151.

The way I see it is primes are more for creative and speciatly purpose photography that is very personal to every photographer. But in landscapes, unless you do a lot of low light, you will be better served with zoom as Juza said. And most of the time you will want to use a tripod for lowlight anyway. There are times were you want to use a tripod and a very fast apeture but that goes back if do a lot of lowlight.

I think you will be best served with the complete fast zoom setup that I first mentioned

John.

[panopticon]

I'm listening to all you say, and I'm starting to agree that I can't really go all primes after all, but will have to acquire a minimum of zooms to fill in gaps. But I also don't really feel the need to cover every mm from 24 to 200 as much as when I first started photography. I guess I've found my little niches and I think those would be good areas to set in with primes, and then attempt to cover the remaining spans with more versatile zoom-lenses. I'll look into the many excellent options you have listed here for primes and think harder about which areas could be better suited for zooms.


Edit:
My initial thoughts lean me more towards a kit consisting of the 24mm f/1.4, 135mm f/2.0 (+ extender), and the 24-105mm added later on to cover up the gap and allow me to accustom myself to the primes. If I don't feel like I miss anything to cover the gap inbetween, then I'll pour the money into a tele-lens instead.

[FastGass]

Well, I am a prime user and I can tell you from exprience that 24mm and 135mm is a huge difference in focal length. You will miss a lot not having some sort of general perpose focal length/lengths, especially if you are going to hike the AT. If you are going to hike the AT reletivelly soon I wouldn't even think twice with the 24-105mm, in a landscape situation you are almost always stopped down to f/8-11 with low ISO's.

You said your primary intrests were landscape and portraits, if thats true then I don't see why you want a 24mm f/1.4 for. Yes it can be used for landscape, but so can just about any focal length as well, the only advatage is a small IQ (stopped down to typical landscape apertures) is that worth missing a very lage number of shots? Well most of my shots are in that range, but don't you like the rest that aren't in the 24mm range? The 24mm f/1.4 is more of a streat/wedding/creative photography lens and can be used anytime you need that focal length but to limit yourself to just 24mm and jump to the other end of the spectrum to 135mm is not wise. I thing you are reading to many reviews that praise this lens when its used properly. Just like if you read the glowing reviews of the 1D IV, it's a fantastic camera but a 5D II is a more suituble body for landscapes or portriats. Unless your portriat subjects are birds then that's another story:-) Then there is no comparison.

Another point to consider is just because you shoot a particular focal length more often than another one doesn't necessarily mean that's your favorite one, I don't shoot my 600mm the most but I like it the most. But to say that you need to shoot a wide variety of subjects for a while before you can confidently say that. Such as HD or me. I am not 100% sure on your experience but that fact that you are not certain about what lenses you want tells me you are probably not in that position.

Of the lenses you listed I would get the 24-105mm and 135mm and later on get a 16-35mm and some other prime, mabye a 50mm or 85 mm prime. That is a far more reasonable compromise. Or any other combination that is not prime only.

In my honest opinion my first recomendation would suit your shooting style best with primes added later on, I know you are anxious to try primes but there much less expensive primes out there that can fill that niche and not sacrifice a whole lot in doing so.

All the best,
John.

[panopticon]

Well, I am a prime user and I can tell you from exprience that 24mm and 135mm is a huge difference in focal length. You will miss a lot not having some sort of general perpose focal length/lengths, especially if you are going to hike the AT. If you are going to hike the AT reletivelly soon I wouldn't even think twice with the 24-105mm, in a landscape situation you are almost always stopped down to f/8-11 with low ISO's.

You said your primary intrests were landscape and portraits, if thats true then I don't see why you want a 24mm f/1.4 for. Yes it can be used for landscape, but so can just about any focal length as well, the only advatage is a small IQ (stopped down to typical landscape apertures) is that worth missing a very lage number of shots? Well most of my shots are in that range, but don't you like the rest that aren't in the 24mm range? The 24mm f/1.4 is more of a streat/wedding/creative photography lens and can be used anytime you need that focal length but to limit yourself to just 24mm and jump to the other end of the spectrum to 135mm is not wise. I thing you are reading to many reviews that praise this lens when its used properly. Just like if you read the glowing reviews of the 1D IV, it's a fantastic camera but a 5D II is a more suituble body for landscapes or portriats. Unless your portriat subjects are birds then that's another story:-) Then there is no comparison.

Another point to consider is just because you shoot a particular focal length more often than another one doesn't necessarily mean that's your favorite one, I don't shoot my 600mm the most but I like it the most. But to say that you need to shoot a wide variety of subjects for a while before you can confidently say that. Such as HD or me. I am not 100% sure on your experience but that fact that you are not certain about what lenses you want tells me you are probably not in that position.

Of the lenses you listed I would get the 24-105mm and 135mm and later on get a 16-35mm and some other prime, mabye a 50mm or 85 mm prime. That is a far more reasonable compromise. Or any other combination that is not prime only.

In my honest opinion my first recomendation would suit your shooting style best with primes added later on, I know you are anxious to try primes but there much less expensive primes out there that can fill that niche and not sacrifice a whole lot in doing so.

All the best,
John.

The comment about hiking the AT was mainly to find out what Ehcalum brought with him on that particular trip (or would bring with him on such a trip today) - I don't have any plans to do the hike myself, though. My kit would be brought along on longer backapcking trips to more desolate areas such as (for example): Vietnam/Cambodia/Laos, India/Nepal, Kazakhstan/Kyrgyzstan/Tajikistan or the like. The countries in particular are still under consideration and thus aren't set in stone, but the duration and means of transportation for such trips is why I'd prefer to carry as little as possible with me. I did a similar trip to South America with the 50D and 11-16/17-55 kit, partially under the impression that I'd gain something from having all focal lengths covered and my plan was to expand to a 70-200mm. Seeing as I ended up switching lenses depending on my subject anyway (landscape/portrait), I found it a bit meaningless to have all those focal lengths in one lens if I only used a few of the FL's anyway. As my Lightroom stats confirmed, I tended to use the zoom only as an excuse of not switching lenses. And since I'd be carrying several lenses around under any circumstances, why not just focus on a few set focal lengths to begin with? It'd give me more creative possibilities with primes being able to open wider than f/2.8, especially with bokeh on the portrait end of the scale and more on night-type photography in the wilds on the wide end - and then there's the overall increase in sharpness. Indeed there's always the risk of missing shots this way, but I was already missing shots by switching between zoom-lenses earlier - why not work on increasing the creative possibilites and overall quality on the shots I can actually catch? That's basically the logic I'm working myself towards at the moment.

That said, I still think you're right. You can't frame every picture with the same focal lengths, and the idea of some kind of compromise overall-lens is highly relevant. The ultimate lenses for coverage are the superzooms, that trade in IQ/creative options for versatility (no need to switch lenses) and coverage (frame anything as you want). A little further up the ladder, you can break that scale into say 3 brackets (16-35, 24-105, 70-200/300) upping the IQ while maintaining coverage, but with less versatility - I'll now have to switch lenses once in a while (potentially missing shots). Going all the way up the ladder, there's the all-out prime solution, but that doesn't make much sense for me either, since I'll be trading both coverage (which doesn't matter much to me) AND versatility (I still need to carry this stuff around) for a increase in IQ and - my main incentive - added creative options. I'll obviously have to settle somewhere on the ladder, but it's not going to be at either end. As you say, primes and a zoom to cover the main gap would be more logical, and perhaps it would be a good idea to get the 24-105mm from the start to work out a more natural focal length for my primes, despite me being (admittedly) a little eager to get to the final destination - that's the reason I'm trying to work out this logic to begin with, I guess.

Nevertheless, I've been thinking this through a little more thoroughly since my last suggestion, and I managed to come up with another idea that I'd like to try and air for you. I realized that the ladder I sketched above was based around DSLR, which in itself isn't that suited for travelling. The idea is then to get the high-quality prime lenses I wanted from the top of the ladder for my 5D, but instead of supporting those with a similar zoom-lens for the same camera-body, perhaps there'd be more to gain from stepping down the DSLR ladder altogether and entering the high-end compact camera arena? I haven't been keeping up with compact cameras for a while, but I've noticed the new compacts with exchangable lenses and was wondering if they're worth looking into a little further for a travel-kit? They could be bought for the price of a 24-105mm and might make more sense for a travel kit, since its main role would be to cover the missing focal lengths on my DSLR, while still being lightweight enough to carry around in my pocket and able to maintain a decent IQ. That way I could also bring a camera along in the more shady areas, for quick snapshots or other situations where a bulky DSLR would have been unhandy anyways. I'd like to hear your thoughts on this idea, and if someone has experience with this type of cameras I'd be interested to hear recommendations for specific types as well.

Just braintstorming here, waiting for the perfect kit to reveal itself for me. But that's probably like what the rest of you is doing already

[FastGass]

The high end mirrorless cameras are quite good, but you are mostly saving weight with the body not much with the lenses. You could always get a rebel with a cheap small prime and you are quite stelthy. But it's a good point with the mirrorless cameras.


If you are willing to use more than two lenses here is the kit that I use, MD 24mm f/2.8, FD 35mm f/2.0, 50mm f/1.7 and 70-210mm f/4. This kit covers most everything I shoot and would add only a 14mm prime get something wider and I could probably skip the 35mm and 70-210mm if I wanted to reduce weight even further. If you wanted something similar you could get the EF 24mm f/1.4, 50mm f/1.2 and 70-200mm f/4 IS or 70-300mm f/4-5.6 L and that would be a very good combination of primes and a zoom, what I do if I don't want to carry everything is leave one or two lenses home that I think I won't need.

Mabye thats your ideal kit
John.

[panopticon]

Thanks for the help and interest John, I feel like I'm getting closer to a solution
I'll research your last couple of suggestions as well as the mirrorless cameras a bit more thoroughly then.

[FastGass]

Happy to oblige,

One last thing, I promiss. Here is a link to the 1Ds III review by Juza http://www.juzaphoto.com/article.php?l=en&article=92.

At the end of the review there are a couple of sample images taken with the 1Ds III and the first one with the stuffed moose is taken with the 24-105mm at it's best, it's has trully remakable dietail. Here is the link for the full size image http://www.juzaphoto.com/shared_file...1ds3_iso50.jpg.

This gives you an idea of what a ISO 112233 chart compares to a reall world post proccessed image, there is nothing in that image that would make me want a prime if IQ was the only factor for me wanting a prime for landscapes. The dietail is just great. Granted there are weaker spots in this lens's performance but that is not a decideing factor, besides that there is the 24-70mm f/2.8 which is even sharper and the II promises basically prime IQ.

John.

[Steve U]

Wow, lot of great thoughts and suggestions here.
Mirrorless, I would seriously consider the Nex7, 24Mb, incredibly portable and some very good glass available for it, including Zeiss and a nifty 18-200 that perform very well. There are a lot of good shots on Flickr from this camera. I think if you managed to pick one of these up, they are very elusive, you would have no regrets.
You would also have no regrets with a 5D.
From your first post you appear to be camera-less at the moment, if I was in your position, I would look at what dollars I have available and go out and get the best kit that I can and start taking photos. If I didn't have enough to buy a big bag full of primes, I would get something like the 24-105 and a 5D and start snapping. And it more than covers the kit you just sold. Or if portability is your main concern eg. travel and weight is 80% of the decision and therefore the main use of the camera, think about a nex7.
But as another consideration in my experience from event shooting(I don't travel) where crowds are thick and the weather can be hostile a FF camera and a 70-300mm L zoom and a 21 or 24 or 35mm prime get it done for me. This is a very usable high IQ package.
Good luck with the considerations.

[panopticon]

Happy to oblige,

One last thing, I promiss. Here is a link to the 1Ds III review by Juza http://www.juzaphoto.com/article.php?l=en&article=92.

At the end of the review there are a couple of sample images taken with the 1Ds III and the first one with the stuffed moose is taken with the 24-105mm at it's best, it's has trully remakable dietail. Here is the link for the full size image http://www.juzaphoto.com/shared_file...1ds3_iso50.jpg.

This gives you an idea of what a ISO 112233 chart compares to a reall world post proccessed image, there is nothing in that image that would make me want a prime if IQ was the only factor for me wanting a prime for landscapes. The dietail is just great. Granted there are weaker spots in this lens's performance but that is not a decideing factor, besides that there is the 24-70mm f/2.8 which is even sharper and the II promises basically prime IQ.

John.

That's an excellent shot indeed, and I think the main reason for going primes should be the low-light capabilities or a similar characteristic - not so much the sharpness which is excellent with (pretty much) all lenses at this price level anyway. I'll consider what lens characteristics appeal to me the most before making the final decision. I've also bookmarked the site, there's plenty of good articles and I'd never heard of the site before, so thanks for that too.

Wow, lot of great thoughts and suggestions here.
Mirrorless, I would seriously consider the Nex7, 24Mb, incredibly portable and some very good glass available for it, including Zeiss and a nifty 18-200 that perform very well. There are a lot of good shots on Flickr from this camera. I think if you managed to pick one of these up, they are very elusive, you would have no regrets.
You would also have no regrets with a 5D.
From your first post you appear to be camera-less at the moment, if I was in your position, I would look at what dollars I have available and go out and get the best kit that I can and start taking photos. If I didn't have enough to buy a big bag full of primes, I would get something like the 24-105 and a 5D and start snapping. And it more than covers the kit you just sold. Or if portability is your main concern eg. travel and weight is 80% of the decision and therefore the main use of the camera, think about a nex7.
But as another consideration in my experience from event shooting(I don't travel) where crowds are thick and the weather can be hostile a FF camera and a 70-300mm L zoom and a 21 or 24 or 35mm prime get it done for me. This is a very usable high IQ package.
Good luck with the considerations.

Thanks for the suggestion of the Nex-7 - I'll look into it.
Are you using a 5D with those lenses? If so what are your experiences with the weather-sealing - I heard the 5D is less sealed than a 7D, so does it even make any sense to have weather-sealing as a factor when choosing lenses? Oh, if you don't mind I'd also be interested to hear your thoughts and experiences with those 3 primes (21/24/35mm) - what do you use them for and do you find any overlaps between them?