Missing a lens?

eyetrip

eyetrip

eyetrip

Soldato
Joined
8 Nov 2006
Posts
9,237
The idea of spending yet more money on lenses pains me, but I know I am missing two - very wide and long zoom.

Currently have for my NX1000, the kit 20-50mm, 30mm pancake, 60mm macro, and the 18-200mm zoom.

I do feel like I need both wider and longer.

On the wider end, I guess I may be ok with the 18mm on the zoom lens. Would love the 12-24mm, but not at current price just shy of £500. Though there is a Samyang 14m manual lens which I think I can get for around £300 (though I guess I could throw the 8mm in that boat too, but think its a little too wide for my uses).

On the tele end, the 200mm may be a bit restrictive when it comes to getting some birds on hols. Have been looking at getting 2nd hand pentax fit 135mm f3.5 prime with 2x converter and adapter for about £75. I know it only gets me about another 33% zoom capability, but the optical quality should out-do my zoom, and it's still quite small and light.

I have considered both the pentax 75-150mm and the 200mm prime (again using the 2x converter), but they are a bit bulkier, slightly slower, and will be a nightmare without ois - where even the 135 is going to be pushing it without ois once the converter on

Is it really worth spending the mula going wider or longer on either of these options?
 
Make sure you understand the limitations of a 2x TC, you will loose a full 2 stops of aperture, so that Pentax 135mm will be only at f/7.1, which is unlikely to AF at all on that camera (or at least be very slow and unreliable) and you also have very limited light gathering to work with. Furthermore, the 2xTC will rob a lot of IQ, you will have to stop down a little to bring back critical sharpness on all but the very best prime lenses - shooting a tele lens at f/11 becomes pretty much impossible to get good results (you will need a lot of light, and if you have that much light then the condiitons wont be favorable for photography).

Also make sure that the TC will even mount on the 135mm. The 75-150mm almost certainly wont take the TC (it is likely tor even physically fit, even if it does you are at f/8 and the IQ just wont hold up).

You mention the Pentax 200mm, do you mean the DA* 200mm f/2.8 ED IF SDM, in which case this is a much better candidate, at f/2.8 you should maintain AF with a 2xTC and a sharp prime has some hope of providing adequate results.

For wildlife I use a Nikon 300mm f/.0 with a a 1.4xTC on a Nikon DX (1.5x crop) body and find it about right for birds and most mammals (longer would be appreciated, but faster even more so). Pentax list a PENTAX DA Star 300mm F4 ED(IF) SDM, that would be my bet alongside a 1.4xTC (you only loose 1 stop of light and the IQ degradation is much reduced, 2xTC are really for the very special super telephoto prime lenses that cost the same as a small car).

Also, I don't know much about the mount adapter for the Samsung, do you retain all functionality like AF, metering, stabilization? There are very few mount adapters out there that retain full functionality, especially between brands. The Nikon F to Nikon 1 adapter is about the only adapter I know of that has full functionality and performance, even the Sony Alpha to Sony E-mount looses performance (AF) badly. Going between 2 brands normally means you loose a lot, like electronic coupling.
 
Thanks for the info DP

I do accept that I will lose ALL auto functionality. It will be a complete manual process which will be difficult, but a last resort for those far off things. And probably something I would only consider if I do end up getting the NX300 in time (for focus peaking).

Didn't realise it was going to limit me quite so severely using an f3.5 lens on a 2x converter.

Also just took it for granted a teleconverter would just work with all mathing mounts...

The 200mm was not a DA, and is F4, so even worse than the 135mm in that regard. I guess the 135 was tempting because it was small and light, and I was hoping to get away with not lugging anything too large around.

My 18-200mm is a good video lens (as it was designed for), and pretty decent overall, but quality falls off towards the 200mm end, and 200mm is also just a bit shorter than I'd like. 300mm would be ideal, but Samsung just don't have it yet.

I will look around for other options. But I am getting the impression from what you say, that I'd need a fast prime around 200mm which is going to be neither cheap nor small, and a 1.4x converter...

May just need to bite the bullet and live with my current zoom for this holiday :(
 
When it comes to reach there are no shortcuts really -lenses get big, heavy and expensive. The only way around it is to get a smaller sensor and lenses designed for that sensor, in the this regard a M43 or Nikon 1 would serve well to get a lot of reach in a small light setup. there is a very nice and light Panasonic 100-300mm lens which gives a lot of reach (600mm in FF terms, you 200mm lenses are only 300mm in FF terms).

Really TCs should be avoided unless absolutely necessary. If you plan to constantly use a TC on a lens then it is the wrong focal length. The trouble is that after a certain point the lens gets very expensive, whence I use a 300mm f/4.0 with a 1.4TC because I cannot afford a 500mm f/4.0 without TC.


With patience, time and practice you can get closer to some animals and get by with a shorter lens but this is variable. For small birds you don't have much choice except if you are lucky. Some large animals it is both illegal and dangerous to approach. I ahve gotten by with a 70-300mm lens on a crop body by spending lots of time trying to get closer, very rewarding when it pays off but can be frustrating to find out that the animal will never let you within its safety buffer and your lens is just too short).
 
Last edited:
I think about the best combination I can find is canon fit vivitar 70-150mm f3.8 with matching 2x converter (nothing like a 1.5 converter there that I can find).

Not sure what mounts besides pentax pk and canon fd offer full manual control lenses.

Perhaps it's just not worth the bother if you reckon I am going to struggle with ligh DP?

ManCuBuS said:
Ah ok, I presume its manual focus only then?
Click to expand...

Yeah, don't think there are any adapters for any auto lenses yet.
 
Iwould very much doubt if a a tele converter would even physically fit on a lens like that vivitar 75-150, the image quality certainly won't be satisfactory for your needs even if it would fit.

It seems with you camera system and your budget you are limited 200mm at the moment. I don't think you have anyway around that other than seeking up the Samsung NX system and buri g into something like a m43 camera that has longer lenses available. And if you are really considering something for wildlife you,should really focus on a full blown DSLR. These,sung cameras are nice and the available lenses are nice it the whole system is very limited right now and it is doubtful they will produce any longer lenses anytime soon because they tend not to make so much sense for small cameras.

If you can fit canon lenses then why not look at getting a canon 70-300mm IS, or prefably a 300mm f/4.0 IS if you don't mind the weight?
 
Yeah, perhaps I could have chosen differently in first place, but I'm not selling up now :(

I was put off the m43 by smaller sensor and possible low light noise. I found that on holidays in Mexico, many of my photos were rubbish as a result of too slow shutter as result of trying to keep iso down in anything but direct sunshine - perhaps very much my fault, but one of reasons I had for going larger sensor.

But I wanted something relatively compact still, hence going the Samsung route. Perhap could have gone Sony NEX, but I didn't...

I could get probably any canon (or even nikon) lens, I think, as I am sure there are adapters out there for most mounts. the only down side of the more modern (and typically smaller) lenses is I will have no manual aperture control, and aperture will always be at it's smallest.

Maybe I can live with that.

Or maybe I just need to live with my current limitations and not spend more?
 
I wouldn't have worried about the m43 sensors- the new sony sensors that are used by the Olympus cameras outperform the much larger Canon Crop sensors in their DSLRs!

You certainly don't want to use a lens at minimum aperture- basically unusable paperweight (extremely dark so you might be looking at 30s or longer exposures, and the diffraction is terrible giving very soft mush - useless by any means).

I am unsure of Canon lenses but all Nikon lenses that are Non-G type (they don't have a the letter G in their full name) all have aperture control. There are plenty of relatively new lenses that are Non-G lenses (as much as it pains me to say his name but Ken Rockwell has a fairly complete compatibility list).
Nikon have an older 70-300mm f/5.6 AF_D lens (nor VR or anything) that you could potentially mount with an adapter - at least you have 300mm natively then. Sigma used to sell a 70-300mm f/5.6 lens that was similar (newer version may not have an aperture ring). The sigma would be available in Nikon/Canon/Pentax mounts.
If you are desperate for more reach then one of these 70-300 will be a much better bet than trying anything with a teleconverter - these work on very few lenses, only the expensive telephoto lenses).

Otherwise you could think about adding an entry level DSLR to your setup. E.g. a Nikon D5100 paired with a Nikon 70-300VR makes for a very nice basic wildlife setup (a cheaper option is a Nikon D3100 and 55-300VR) . Obviously longer lenses help.

Using 2 camera systems makes sense- one small light setup for when you want something pocket-able, one bigger DSLR setup for more serious use.


One curve-ball idea is simply to pickup a bridge camera with a long zoom lens- these are in general bad camera but is the cheapest way to get any reach.
 
Last edited:
Think I described something incorrectly - if I get auto lens, it will be stuck wide open I believe (smallest f number) rather than closed.

The problem I have is, I only really want the zoom capabilities when on holiday, which in itself rules out SLR's for me, as close as I was to getting one recently, purely due to bulk.

When I'm back home, the stuff I currently have is more than sufficient, and I have no need for anything longer.

The great thing about these mirrorless systems is they can be as big or small as I want really. Slap on the 30mm pancake (and to lesser extent the 20-50 kit lens) and it's pretty much a carry with me at all times camera.

I'll have a look for non-g lenses tonight. But I am kinda resigning self to just living with what I have on the zoom side of things.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom