Sat outside in the back garden on a bright chilly day doing some lens testing with the Tokina AT-X 90mm 2.5 Macro and a large pigeon landed in the apple tree about 12 feet from me. Just long enough to swing the camera up, manually focus using the excellent peaking assist (already set to f/5.6 and 200 ISO, IS on) and fire 2 shots before he decided he hadn't surveyed his landing site properly and I was too close for his comfort. This is the first shot.
<http://www.seeingeye.tv/PESO/peso010.html> Pen F + Tokina 90/2.5 Minimal crop, slight levels adjust, slight saturation increase. -------------------------------- I am re-assessing my lens requirements. Boris is absolutely right in that the Voigtlander Heliar 15/4.5 is far too slow to be a useful general purpose lens (one to you Boris!) and I think I might sell it. Thing is, it is a lovely landscape wide angle on APS-C and so I might just hang onto it in case... I've snagged an M50/1.4 off eekbay for 60 quid, waiting for that to arrive. Portrait lens on a half-frame sensor. When I had Pentax film cameras, I never got into 50mm lenses, finding the angle of view neither here nor there. I had a 28mm which I loved, and the other way you were into telephoto territory. Now, with my Pentax 24/2.8 on a half-frame sensor, it gives an image like a 50mm, and am actually enjoying it. So the question is, do I replace the 15/4 with something like the Oly 17/2.8? It's pricey, and actually I have always favoured a wider angle as a general purpose lens. So I might consider the Oly 12/2 (which gives an angle of view like a 24mm lens on a full-frame camera). But although it has manual focus override, it's still an electronic lens with no aperture ring. Then I came across some reviews for the Samyang 12mm f/2 which point to a good value for money lens. It's about 250 GBP which is a lot cheaper than the Voigtlander 10.5mm f/.95 at 900 GBP!! The angle of view on half- frame means it will act like a 24mm lens - ideal for my idea of a 'general purpose' lens. That is, a lens that I would normally default to, leaving it on the camera as it is picked up to be used. I'm seriously tempted by the Samyang. I'm building up a kit that relies on manual focus and manual aperture. This requires forethought in setting up for photographing, a good challenge for me! The picture of the pigeon would be so easy to get with an auto-everything cam/lens combo, and when I used to have EOS 1D gear with IS lenses and machine- gun capability I did all that, and it was fun, but now..... The satisfaction of achieving a similar photograph with a simple and basic setup (not even a zoom lens) is high. I felt like I'd actually used skill and judgement in getting a decent image [of the pigeon] and so in a way the photo is almost a 'reward' for effort. I find this much more satisfying as I get a little older now. My son thinks I'm barking mad. But hey. -- Cheers, Cotty ___/\__ Broadcast, Corporate, || (O) | Web Video Production ---------- <www.seeingeye.tv> _____________________________ -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.