A few thoughts on lenses

Just a few quick notes on lenses, I finally sent off my broken Tamron 28-300mm f/3.5 off to the recommended repair depot. I’ll let everyone know how fast they turn it around and what it costs and all of those sordid details. Since I wanted a wide angle (you can’t shoot christmas with a 100-400 as your widest lens!) I rented a Sigma 18-200mm from the folks at Borrowlenses.com to give it a try. My experience with Borrowlenses was frankly awesome, and I plan to continue using them in the future.

I didn’t do a lot of work with the lens and I certainly didn’t do the kind of work that would let me make “scientific” evaluations. If you want lines per inch geeking, there are places for that.

Here, just opinions. Maybe even somewhat informed (maybe not).

The reason I bought the Tamron was that I wanted a big zoom ratio and a compact footprint so I could use a single lens as a carry around street camera. It normally lives on my Canon Rebel, and my Rebel lives in the Tamrac 3385 I use as my haul-around to and from work, or in a little Tamrac 3536 I use as a city bag. For this purpose, the Tamron is a nice lens. Given my propensity to photograph small things that fly away if I move in their direction, the extra zoom oomph of being able to get to a 300mm magnification helps.

But the lens has some tradeoffs, and I’m starting to really understand the compromises using it brings. For one, I’m constantly fighting the fact that (for me) that a 28mm on an APS sensor (1.6x magnification, 44mm equivalent) just isn’t wide enough. I want wider. (WIDER! WIIIIDDDDDEEEEERRR!!! BWAHAHAHAH!); by cutting off the wide aspect to get the long aspect, I’ve limited the utility of the lens for what I’d like to do at the magnification end that is the lens’ primary purpose. that’s enough of a mistake that I found myself quietly thinking to myself that the Sigma 10-20mm f/4 lens looked intriguing…

But that really defeats the purpose of having a single lens, no? (not that I’m complaining about having more lenses!), so that made me sit back and rethink the problem from the start not as a “how do I patch what I have” but “what is the right answer?”. Renting the Sigma 18-200mm was an experiment in alternatives.

I was right, the difference between the 18mm low end and 28mm low end was significant. I much prefer the wider available angle. I also prefer the Sigma build quality. Ignoring that I broke the Tamron (hey, it happens), the Tamron has the heft and feel of a consumer lens (plastic construction, light weight) while the Sigma lens feels more “professional” — I’d call it more of a prosumer style lens. It and the other Sigma I own (the 180mm macro) both impress me with the quality of the build and their heft, they feel sturdier and stiffer and generally come across to me as more able to take the kind of banging lenses that live with me sometimes go through. The Tamron is a nice lens — but I like the Sigma lenses better. The Sigma lens seems (subjectively) crisper, but I need to also remind myself that it’s not trying to be such a mega-zoom. the two lenses aren’t directly comparable in performance or intent in simple ways. But all in all, I like the Tamron, I like the Sigma more.

But having played with the 18-200, that made me ask myself how to ‘fix’ my dilemma. Replace the tamron? Supplement it? Something else? SO MANY QUESTIONS! No easy answers.

What I decided, though, was that the idea of a “street kit” made a lot of sense and the Tamron is a good lens for the street kit, but for my “serious” kit, that lens has compromises I’m not really satisfied with; it’s not wide enough or sharp enough for things I’d like to do. So I think it makes sense to plan for an upgrade to the “serious kit” to live full time with the big lenses and make the Tamron a full time street kit lens. Since I think I’m close to buying a 7D, this seems to make sense. (yes, I’m using “seems” a lot tonight, because these plans aren’t final. your feedback welcome).

One change I’d make in buying a lens to fit this need is to do away with the mega-zoom; that causes compromises in the optics that I can accept when I’m carrying a low-profile camera around a city in a walk-about, but I’m not so happy with those compromises when I’m taking landscapes on a tripod in the middle of Yosemite. I can also go wider, but if you push the zoom on the wide side, you start forcing those compromises in the other direction (and besides, I need an excuse to BUY THE SIGMA 10-20! MORE GLASS! NEED MORE LENSES!) — so I’m considering a lens with a more “normal” zoom ratio, and one that’s got a high sharpness and quality.

I’ve been researching lenses that the photographers I follow are using, and one that seems to keep popping up is the Canon EF-S 15-85mm f/3.5 and so that seems to be my leading candidate. I need to rent it and take it out for a spin and see what I like. it gives me a tiny gap in zoom coverage (15-85, 100-400) but that’s more than acceptable to me. It’s also something I can find used if I want to. Dave Cardinal has a nice piece on the Sigma 24-70, and that looks interesting as well. If the Tamron isn’t back for my next trip, I’ll likely rent that and take it with me to try it out.

So we’ll see. No need to make this decision right away or in haste. The fun part of these challenges is that you can solve a problem in a number of different ways.

But right now, if I were to make these decisions again, I wouldn’t buy the Tamron again — I think there are better options. If I wanted to do something similar I’d use the Sigma 18-200 and give up that last ounce of zoom capability, but my general feeling now is that a better option for that street camera is the Canon G11 and not use a DLSR at all and then buy a wide angle lens just for the “serious bag” — or use the Panasonic Lumix DMC line of cameras. Laurie’s used those for years for her hockey photography because they have a great zoom and they’re compatible with the Sharks camera policies, and they really are nice units that live somewhere beyond point and shoot but aren’t quite DLSRs — but they do have two things that help them disappear from the prying eyes of the “camera hesitant”, which is they do not have removable lenses and the lenses don’t pop out far and scream “this is a serious camera” nearly as much as a DLSR, and that’s allowed her to take photos in situations where other cameras have gotten challenged. Sometimes, that’s not a bad thing to have handy…

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