01 June 2009

Sunbeams beat pacing

Even when it's 12 C and breezy.

This is one of a large number of pictures that make me think that maybe 100mm macro lenses are my natural length for photography. Or maybe that's just the longest relatively fast prime I own; if Pentax really does come out with a 135/2.8 limited, and I bought it, maybe more than a third of all the shots I took would be with that, instead. (200mm would probably be a little too long for indoor zoo applications.)

Hey, and maybe if bags and bags of money fell on me out of the sky, or, preferably, fell near me, I could get that (if and when it exists) and the ZK 100/2, and do some sort of extensive comparison to really settle the question.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

yeah, i am seriously pondering what lens to buy (once DSLR buying time is here; it's getting close) for my macros. judging from what i take now a stnadard macro might be fine -- i take lots of close-ups of flowers. but that's only because i can't often take closeups on flowers with insects on them or of birds at the feeder, or any number of things where i just cannot get close enough without disturbing the subject.

so it might be a better idea for me to buy a medium tele macro.

i wish i could rent more lenses -- i can rent nikon's own lenses, but not generally sigma or tamron.

Graydon said...

Have you looked at the (incipient) K-7? Splash-proofing is handy for people on boats. :)

I have the FA 100/2.8 macro and the DA 35/2.8 macro; the 35 is very handy for flowers and is a solid walk-around lens. The FA100 is this aluminium brick but it's got a focus limiter and thus makes a very sharp shortish tele lens, too. (Yes, yes, I know, 150mm equivalent 35mm camera field of view. From the point of view of someone trying to take pictures of birds, that's decidedly shortish.)

I've heard good things about at least one 150mm Sigma macro lens; no experience of the Tamrons. The ZK 100/2 is really a Cosina, and with different letter codes those are available for just about everything; it gets happy drooling raves but fails to be cheap.