Switch lens or switch camera

I have a very nice K100D and Pentax DA 16-45 and 50-200mm zooms which are also rather nice. Both lenses chosen after advice obtained from this forum, so thanks for that.

When out and about I do find myself changing lenses quite a bit so I was thinking that the convenience of the new Tamron 18-250 zoom or similar could be rather handy. Not that I really have this sort of spare cash at my fingertips, just thinking about it as you do.

Then I thought of the inevitable compromise in image quality that such a zoom range implies.

I then considered for that sort of money I could probably get another camera body. Yes, I would have to swap cameras to go from the wide angle range to telephoto but it would offer some other flexibility such as additional storage capacity and I would not loose the image quality.

Am I just being lazy or is this the sort of thing an amateur photographer can consider doing? I guess it depends on budget and how much kit I'm prepared to carry around, not that it's that heavy or bulky.

Cheers

suppose you got 1 slr and three or four lenses. You drop the camera. It breaks. now how many pictures can you take?

suppose you got 2 slrs and two or three lenses. You drop one camera. It breaks. Now how many pictures can you take?

I use the Pentax SMC-FA 28-200 for about 75% of what I do.

Admittedly I haven't done any prints bigger than about A4 yet, but mostly my stuff is seen on the web if it's seen at all.

If the Tamron 18-250 is any good, then you'll find that it's possible to take the camera with you (since it's just one camera, one lens) to places you'd never dream of taking a camera to at all, if the alternative is two bodies and at least two lenses.

I would bet that this convenience will often - not always, of course, but often - outweigh the poorer image quality from a lens with such a huge range.

This is absolutely a critical point. The quality of the better lenses becomes ever more important the more you enlarge, or indeed the more you crop. A3 printing is much more demanding. A4 is pretty much the native resolution of the K10D without interpolation.

However, equally well very cheap or very over-specified lenses can show up their deficiencies at even quite small sizes. Going from the 16-45mm to a super zoom is a pretty dismal direction to take IMHO.

It doesn't take very long to change a lens....

Not disputing any of this - I've become more demanding over the last few months so I expect the trend to continue to the point where I start thinking of the 16-45 at least.

But I wasn't thinking so much the changing, more the carrying. Even an SLR at all can be a pain to lug about often enough, let alone several lenses as well. Not every trip, sadly, is exclusively a photographic excursion.

Yes, this is always a problem. For this reason I carry a Pentax A20 always. Not perfect, not ideal, but capable of taking some decent shots if used with care.

The DSLR is much easier to use. If it's a minimal kit that's needed then just the K10D with its 16-45mm lens is all I take. Then I make do.

I'm with JR.
my canon g5 and pro one go places where slrs r too heavy to lug or are at risk of damage.

am drooling over the new g9.....but can't have.

does pentax have anything that competes with those models?

Back in my purely film days I owned piles of kit including FA* prime lenses and F2.8 zooms but despite that I still found the FA 28-200 to be a useful bit of kit - primarily for family days out where I didn't want to carry much kit and/or when my wife and kids tolerance for lens changing stops was at a particularily low ebb. Yes the lens was a little on the slow side compared to my other kit and yes the optical quality wasn't quite as good however it wasn't that bad and overall I was quite happy with it.

I've no experience of these 18-250 or similar lenses but unless they're total crap optically then I'm sure they'd serve a useful purpose for the same sort of thing as my old 28-200 did. 250 is probably longer than is really necessary for a lens that slow (you'll probably have to use higher ISO's and even then - if handheld - wider apertures where the lens isn't at it's sharpest) - I'd much rather have something like a 16-150 and if someone makes an affordable consumer spec one of those then I'll definitely consider it.

The 16-45 is a lovely lens and very useful however used by itself it's a bit short at the long end for a fair few shots that'll I encounter as a tourist so I always take a longer lens with it. In my case that's a 80-200 F2.8 (which is heavy) but it AF's well with a 2x TC so I'd rather have it than a slower lens. If those Samsung 50-200's were still available for £50 I'd definitely have take one of those for lightweight days.

Hi "Barry"

Well, perhaps I'm in a unique position to advise you as I recently purchased a K10D + D-BG2 + Tamron 18-250mm Di II 'walkaround' lens. As for the following words:


OUCH........it was the "total crap optically" that made me both wince deeply and almost split-my-sides-laughing in the same breath !! One thing I can categorically assure you about is that my Tamron 18-250mm is certainly not "crap optically" and I'm pleased to say that it's build-quality is reassuringly solid !! I have been down the conventional 35mm SLR and Medium-Format routes over the years and have assembled a veritable arsenal of bodies and lenses along the way. The K10D is my first Digital SLR and before purchasing it, I decided at the outset that I'd simply had enough of lugging around tons of equipment. However, I wasn't prepared to sacrifice image quality for convenience either. Thus after many months of careful consideration and forum searching I eventually arrived at a final decision. The sheer freedom of not having to continually keep swapping-over lenses is quite a liberating experience and has considerably added to my enjoyment of taking creative photographs ! All I can suggest is that you find a photographic store in your area that hopefully stocks the Tamron 18-250mm in a Pentax mount and TRY IT ! You may well be suitably impressed, because I know I certainly was and in equal measure by the Pentax K10D, which "ain't-arf one-helluva" camera IMO !!

Best regards
Richard

Just to be clear - my earlier post wasn't critising the 18-250 in any way as I've never even seen one. My point was that in my film days I found the much sneered at superzooms quite useful, despite owning primes and fast zooms as well, and I can see no reason why these latest superzooms would be any less useful. I'm not sure I'd go with anything as long as the 18-250 though as the cheaper 18-125 or 18-200 lenses would be adequate for the sort of stuff I used superzooms for.

It wouldn't surprise me at all if these lenses outperform the Pentax 18-55 where there range overlaps - my 28-200 was a better performer than both Pentax 28-80's I've owned.

Thanks for the various comments. Some interesting perspectives on the topic.

Richard, I think I will take your advice and see if I cannot try one of the Tamrons. I've also yet to try a K10.

Thanks

Hi "niblue"

Re your point:


I was unsurprisingly offered the usual K10D + 18-55mm 'kit lens' at the time of purchase, but rejected the 'kit-lens' part of the equation for the obvious reason of 'overlapping focal lengths' that you mentioned. Apart from purchasing a Sigma 10-20mm in the near future, I fully intend to keep lens-swapping/sensor dust issues to the absolute minimum !! Incidentally, I still have an ancient OM mount Vivitar 70-210mm macro lens which is optically quite spectacular, but it weighs an absolute TON and practically tips my old Gitzo tripod over, causing the ball-head to droop alarmingly if it isn't tightened sufficiently !

Best regards
Richard

This is the thing - horses for courses.

No one, I think, is suggesting that if the objective is to go out and take tripod-mounted, low-ISO landscapes that will be blown up to A3 and hung on the wall, you wouldn't want the very best glass you could get.

But it does seem that there are quite a lot of people, and I'm certainly one of them, for whom in many situations, usability counts for as much as ultimate optical perfection, when the latter isn't the absolute priority.

Years ago I spent quite a lot of time up and down Lake District fells with my ME Super and Sigma 28-200 (which I still have, and remarkably is still in great condition and I'll never sell it). Lots of the pictures from those days, IIRC, weren't bad at all, and they're far better than no picture at all, which is what would have been the case if I'd had to cart a damn great rucksack full of stuff up and down them. Scrambling down from Helvellyn once, on to Striding Edge, comes to mind. I'm quite glad I was as lightly laden as I was...

Hi "niblue"

Re your point:


The Tamron 18-250mm Di II is so 'compact' in it's overall dimensions that it really doesn't make much difference. If you only need to go up to 200mm you can always stop there, but just remember that there's an additional 50mm in reserve for those occasions when you require that 'extra reach'. Simply try this lens out and I'm confident that you won't be disappointed !! Quite a few others on the Pentaxforums site have decided to trade-in their Tamron 18-200mm's for the 18-250mm as it's reckoned to be optically superior and others with their Sigma 70-300mm's are doing likewise !!!

Best regards
Richard

Hmm. Not knocking the Tamron at all.

But having seen some of the photographs posted there that supposedly support or refute some assertion about the sharpness or otherwise of some lens or other, I'd advise a little caution before using such evidence in isolation.