Frederik0711
Offline
• •
Upload & Sell: Off
|
 p.4 #7 · How Do I Select The Best Light/Small 24mm/25mm Travel Lens | |
bwcolor wrote:
@Frederik0711@@
Your posts were quite helpful. It is so easy to set out to put together a small, light package and get distracted by the obvious charms of larger lenses, such as the 24mm GM lens. It is also easy to want to purchase beautifully rendering lenses, that might make great images, but not make it to your travel kit. I’m thinking of the Loxia 25mm here where the images coming out of that lens are amazing, but when I travel with a camera, I only take two lenses maximum and this means I either take the Loxia 21mm, or 25mm and the 49mm G. So, one of the wide Loxias go unused. I do take two camera systems, but only use one system on any given day. I enjoy traveling with lenses that force me to see the environment through a different perspective. I purchased the 20-70mm for a more general lens, but I doubt that I will travel with it. Every time I’m falling to the urge of buying the 24 & 35mm GM lenses, or another Loxia, I go back to Lightroom and look at equivalent focal lengths in medium format and that ends that, I take the FF lens out of my B&H cart. I have three distinct systems and each is for specific purposes. By far, the M11 Monochrom provides the greatest satisfaction. It is light, images are impactful and it will take great images with almost no light. It brings back the joy of B&W photography with a much expanded skill set. Medium format provides a quality and look that I like. X2D images processed through Phocus are amazing, or at least can be amazing. The f/2.5 v series of lenses provide just the right depth of field for so many images and the lenses are perfect wide open. For example, the 90mm at f/2.5 makes head shots with everything tack sharp (yikes) and beautiful bokeh. The down side is you are shooting an SL-3 size camera and so far, no eye autofocus.. So, the A7CR is by far the most technically capable camera. It can capture images in situations where the other systems are lost and it is almost Leica ‘M’ small. So, the small/capable is the most stellar part of this camera. Also, the range of lenses available for the FE mount are just staggering. I recently retired and sold many old bodies/lenses from Canon, Leica, Sony, Zeiss, Panasonic and Contax to fund my new cameras. It was a difficult thing to part with so many cameras and lenses that I love, but never use, but if you can part with some of yours and give up auto-everything, color and are shooting purely for your own satisfaction, give the M11 Monochrom a try....Show more →
Thank you for your message!
I agree with everything you stated. I have owned several fast GM, DN primes and zooms, but I either don't take advantage of them or don't want to bring them. I think that bigger, "better" and faster lenses blind people to some extent, and can lead to a lot of aimless images. Most images don't turn out any better by doing so, but there are of course situations where that kind of separation supports the image or is necessary due to the lighting conditions.
It's rare that I even want anything out of focus unless it's proportionally distracting, or it's too much hasle to get all of it in focus. That's essentially true for most architecture, landscape, street, macro, et cetera.
It's true for portraits, too, where one should find a balance, which I mentioned in a previous post. The point is what's in focus.
It seems that we admire similiar tools. I have considered the Leica M11 (regular) and Hasselblad X2D several times. My wallet won't allow it for now as a student, and this is just a passion for me as well. I do get the appeal of a monochrome camera, especially for street (and some, but not all architecture), but most of my images are in colour, so it wouldn't make much sense.
I do plan to get a Leica, Hasselblad or both one day, as I admire the experience, haptics and look. It's not about Leica or Hasselblad themselves necessarily, but how they craft their cameras is unmatched. I'm sure that Voigtländer could make just as good "dirt cheap" modern rangefinders, though, and I would be all in. They already produce equal or superior lenses for way less. No idea why they don't take advantage of this, when there's no actual competition in the electronic rangefinder market. They already have good experience with rangefinders and of course excellent manual focus lenses of various focal lengths, apertures and design philosophies.
I'm not going to use film, and I still want high resolution, so only the M10-R and M11 cameras will do it for me, which obviously will set me more back in terms of cost compared to old, used Leica cameras. I love focusing through a rangefinder, but I use ultra-wide angle lenses way too often to bother. It kind of ruins the process, if I keep having to switch between the rangefinder, an attached electronic viewfinder (which looks peculiar), and the backscreen. That's why I went for the a7C R.
The same is true with Fujifilm producing medium format cameras, but they just don't craft them in a way that resonates with me, and the same is true with their way of rendering colour. The GFX system is like the FE system; practical and reasonably priced, but not as inspiring as other given systems. Still, FE is the most interesting full-frame system when it comes to anything other than Leica M, I think.
|
. And then I bought the SY45 tiny lens from someone here on FM. Ugh. Hated the lens - nasty OOF rendering and specular highlights and I had a lot of missed AF situations.