I couple the DA14 with the FA20-35 and DA21, Paul, so the wide field coverage is nicely covered for my uses. I love the DA14's field of view, but even with that I use the FA20-35 at 28-35mm much more than I use it at 20mm, and I use the DA21 a LOT. The FA20-35 nets nearly prime quality performance at 20, 24, 28 and 35 mm settings ... while it's not much sharper or contrastier than the 16-45 at the same focal length settings, I find the corner/edge performance wide open to be a little better and the out of focus rendering quality to be superior.
Handling is very important to me, however, due to some of the subject matter that I like to shoot (people) so smaller and lighter is always a plus. The 12-24 is even larger/bulkier than the DA14, which is my largest, bulkiest lens, and that is one of the reasons I use it a little less than I would otherwise. The only thing I miss with the FA20-35 is the lack of Quickshift focusing ... but it's so contrasty even wide open that manual focusing with it is a joy. Diff'rent strokes, eh? ;-) Godfrey On Jan 14, 2007, at 11:13 PM, Paul Stenquist wrote: > > The FA 20-35 is a fine lens. I owned one at one time, but it became > redundant so I sold it. Of course it's no substitute for its wider > brethren. In 35 mm FOV it's 30mm at the wide end, while the DA 16-45 > is 24mm -- a huge difference. But for wide zooms, the DA 12-24/ 4 is > the clear winner. It's a better optic than all of the above and gives > you a true wide FOV. It's also very manageable in that it doesn't > extend much at either the wide or the long end. A superb lens. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
