31 May 2017

New ways to play with K

The K-5 has arrived and is doing just fine, as expected. Now about my lenses..

I had tried to deal an 18-250 but it was rejectDolby B&H, and now i see why. When I last used it focus was fine except at the long end where I presumed f/6.3 had too little light. Now I cannot get it to focus anywhere in the range! Very disappointing. The 28-90 and 100-300 work fine but I have neither wide-angle nor weather-sealed options.

The WR issue was fixed tonight with a DAL/WR 50-200mm lens. Nice, but it limits the 100-300's utility a bit! In the past I've found the DAL copies of the 50-200 gave better results than the da versions - which makes no sense at all, though I hope it's still true!

So this leaves me with a major hole below 28mm. I am bidding on an 18-50re but kept the bid low so we shall see. I may want to lose, to try a new option that caught me by surprise.

I had a few familiar choices: 18.55 or 18.135, 10.17 fisheye, 16.45 or a local copy of the F17.28 fisheye. All these options are familiar ones but no used deals are exceptional so all options will cost over $100 right now. And then I saw a "pristine" Tamron 10.24 online for $150. That's a really low price for an ultrawide and opens up more possibilities than the usual suspects.

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Update: sure enough the 18-50 went for a dollar over my bid, and the 10-24 option was pulled. Plan B-minus is to find a mount for my white 18-55WR, preferably a WR mount but anything will do on a budget! depending on my need I could have either the 18-55 or 55-200 have the sealed mount.. but better both than the wrong one at the wrong time.