snapsy wrote:
You seem like the perfect candidate for a MFT system. Have you ever considered it?
Yes indeed, and quality is excellent. Get the 7-14 f/4, 12-35 f/2.8 and 35-100 f/2.8 for an awesome 3 kit combo and total weight with OM-D is about 2kg or maybe less and you've covered 14-200mm effective FF.
snapsy wrote:
You seem like the perfect candidate for a MFT system. Have you ever considered it?
I have a Fujifilm X-E1 system for travel and street photography. It is a beautiful system that produces fine results for many purposes, but neither it nor the smaller "MFT" systems can equal what I can do with my full frame DSLR system - though for many folks I think that such cameras could be a great solution.
I have a 24-105 and find with the 5dii and holster bag a tad bit bulky to wear on my backpack hip belt, which is where i like the camera for ease of use. Also I have never been happy with the edge quality of the lens @ 24(perhaps i have a bad copy) so i ended up getting a zeiss 28 f2 which was a lot better and the voit 90 is better as well.
The 24-70Lii looks like a really spectacular performer and to my eyes is a tie with the 24 IS USM in the digital picture review, perhaps even a smidgin better. Though, like the 24-105, it is also going to be the bulkiness which is going to put me off.
Thanks again. Looks like the 24 USM IS is what i might get.
karlfoto, you asked about the Zeiss 50mm f/2.0, and nobody else has picked up on that. If you are even thinking about that lens, just buy it. Even if you are also going to be carrying the 24-70. That Zeiss delivers a combination of sharpness, color, and contrast that is unrivaled. And it focuses close enough for semi-macro use, and isn't excessively large or heavy. And it's even less expensive than the other Zeiss heavy hitters, like the 21mm and the 100mm.
One point to note in favor of the zoom for landscape use: getting perfect framing instead of having to crop during post-processing is kind of like an upgrade in image quality, because you get the optimum use of your pixels. Getting the most possible pixels on the subject always improves sharpness. If you are free to move around to get optimum framing with a prime, great, that's the best way to go. But if you aren't free to move, then a marginally lesser IQ zoom might sometimes deliver better IQ than a better prime. And of course an autofocus zoom is going to do better tracking any moving subject than a manual focus prime like the Zeiss.
halie wrote:
Ahhh, pack animal supported nine day trip. That means cold beer instead of just whiskey.
And real meals instead of my usual boil-water-in-one-pot-and-eat-from-the-pot fare. ;-)
It also means that I'll be able to have some equipment with me that I usually forego when I have to schlep it on my own back. (Though I am planning on a short backpacking overnight to a nearby location on at least one of the evenings.)
Usually i can move around a bit and I dont set up the tripod until i am happy with the composition. I then put the camera down at my feet, pick up the tripod and set up and then adjust the height to roughly where my eye was. I would rather not crop if i don't have to. If so, it is minimal.
I ended up getting the 24 usm is and also the 40 pancake. I usually only have a 24 or 28 and a 90 while hiking, so i will test out how much i use the 40 and then might get the zeiss 50 later on. My landscape work was historically done on a 67ii with 55 and 135mm lenses.
karlfoto wrote:
I would rather not crop if i don't have to.
You just made one of the best and strongest arguments for using a zoom rather than a prime. You can precisely control all camera-based factors that go into your composition without compromising one to "fix" the other. If you find a subject that works perfectly at, say 37mm, you cannot use a 40mm FL, and you'll have to crop 24mm. Or you move the camera position to get the subject to fit into one of the FL fields of view, thus altering the size of foreground/background elements to accommodate your limited FL variability.
Or you use a high quality zoom, carefully move your camera position in the left/right, close/far, up/down dimensions until all scene elements (primary subject, foreground, background) are assembled in your idea fashion at precisely the focal length that makes this work, and then there is no cropping necessary.
