bruce johnson

<p>A valid question and one that can be asked about every piece of photo gear when travelling. Do you want to cover all possibilities? If so, bring everything including all your lenses, back-up bodies, tripods, flashes, etc. Sometimes one of the primary purposes of travel is an opportunity to go make stunning images. In that case I error on the side of bringing too much gear.<br>

That's what I used to do on every trip a few years ago. These days, photography is no longer one of my primary goals when travelling and I travel with as little gear as possible. My last couple trips were done with just a Sony RX100 + polarizer + Gorillapod + spare battery + Lens Pen. It can all fit in two pants pockets or one jacket pocket/small camera case. Did I miss a few photos that I could have gotten with a backpack full of gear? Probably. Do I care? Not at all. I now love the freedom of not carrying a pack full of camera gear and worry more about enjoying the journey, my surroundings and the people I'm with rather than coming back with the best images possible. In this way I enjoy the travel more and still am thrilled with the photos I captured when I return home.<br>

As for flash, I occasionally use the pop-up flash built-in to my cameras. For me it's the RX100 which can even do bounce flash or the one in the Pentax K5; I believe the D7000 is similar to the K5 in that regard. I also find that most of the time my images are robust enough (if exposed properly) and post-processing software is good enough to easily lift up the shadows in post-processing if need be. It's a little extra work but does work well when needed.<br>

I no longer bring an external flash and rarely regret that choice. If I didn't have a built-in flash, then I probably would look for a small pocketable option as some previous posters have mentioned.<br>

So, no right answer. Figure out what your priorities are and I think your answer will become apparent.</p>

<p>I'm 2 years into Pentax after 20+ years of Canon so I cannot comment too much on the history of Pentax, but I'd say that their most significant recent releases are their new camera bodies, first the Kx and K7 and soon to be the Kr and K5. I find this to be very surprising considering that HOYA is first and foremost an optical company. I'd have expected that since HOYA's takeover their most significant new releases would have been new lenses rather than bodies, but no. I hope it is only a matter of time (and not too long) before HOYA begins to produce some exciting lenses for their Pentax bodies.<br>

My hope is that HOYA feared that if they lagged behind on the bodies they would see their lens sales lag regardless of whatever wonderful new glass they developed so they concentrated on catching up to the other big players in the body department. That and developing the 645D maybe took all of their resources since the takeover to now. Hopefully now that the 645D is in production and the Kr & K5 are about to hit the shelves, maybe they can divert some attention to addressing the gaps that some perceive in their lens lineup.<br>

For me personally I'd like:</p>

<ul>

<li> to buy a 50-135/2.8 with confidence that I won't experience SDM failure</li>

<li>a 1.4x (or 1.7x) teleconverter</li>

<li>a 28/1.4 built like the DA Ltd or even better like the D FA 100/2.8 macro for less than $1000 (or anything 24-35). I might even settle for an updated FA 31/1.8 Ltd if it could be a bit smaller (optimized for APS-C and lose the aperture ring) and quick-shift focusing.</li>

</ul>

<p>I guess my newness to Pentax is revealed by my comments on the FA 31/1.8 Ltd as I call for loosing the aperture ring. Frankly I have one on my FA 135/2.8 and never use it so I'd rather have one less mechanical thing to fail and would rather gain a smaller, cheaper, lighter, less complex lens and forfeit the aperture ring. Sorry to those that consider the aperture ring to be essential.<br>

Give me the above and I'll sell off what's remaining of my Canon kit.</p>

<ol>

<li>DA Ltds combined with SR (that's really 90% why I do) </li>

<li>HyperProgram</li>

<li>HyperManual</li>

<li>Green Button</li>

<li>Did I mention DA Ltds combined with SR?</li>

</ol>

<p>I went in 2004 and brought a Canon Elan 7, 17-40/4L, 70-200/4L, 50/1.8 and a Hexar AF (with 35/2.0). 67 & 77mm polarizers and warming filters (never used the warming filters). Gitzo 1228 tripod with Arca Swiss ballhead. 70 rolls of film (Velvia, Provia 100 & 400). Lens usage was roughly as follows:</p>

<ul>

<li>17-40: 45%</li>

<li>Hexar AF: 35%</li>

<li>70-200: 18%</li>

<li>50/1.8: 2%</li>

</ul>

<p>I brought my tripod to Nepal and never used it. Prior to this trip I don't think I ever took a serious photo without a tripod! I didn't want to slow up my group and didn't feel like carrying it. I got real good at finding things to steady my camera with instead. While trekking I used two trekking poles like two legs of a tripod to steady my hands/gear and this worked great. In town there's always a wall, bench, pole, garbage container or something to use if need be. I did this with no image stabilization and my two favourite photos are at f/4 and 1/4 sec (EF17-40/f4L) and f/2 & 1/8 sec (Hexar AF with 35/2.0) the former with the body pressed against a pole, the other strictly handheld (love leaf shutters!).</p>

<p>I decided I loved the Hexar (small/light) and didn't care for the bulk of the Canon system. That's why I've recently switched to Pentax. Now that I primarily shoot Pentax I'd take:</p>

<ul>

<li>Whatever DSLR I'm familiar with (K7 for me)</li>

<li>DA 15, 21, 40, 70. Instead of the 21 & 40 I could be persuaded to bring the FA31 or else DA35 macro. 2 focal lengths vs. fast aperture vs. macro = tough choice!</li>

<li>I'd be tempted to throw in the DA 55-300 but that would be the first thing to leave behind if the pack was a bit heavy. If this came along I'd also bring 58mm polarizer and Canon 500D close up lens for macros.</li>

<li>49mm polarizer</li>

<li>about 2GB/day worth of SD cards (probably need 1/2 that, but they're small and relatively cheap compared to the 70 rolls of film I brought last time)</li>

<li>spare battery and charger</li>

<li>Lens Pen and microfibre cleaning cloth</li>

</ul>

<p>A pocketable backup would be nice. I'd bring along my Ricoh GX100 if possible. Unfortunately that requires a separate charger too...</p>

<p>Have a great time. I'll never forget my trip there.<br>

Bruce</p>

<p>You're apparently from the film days. I just bought a K7 for what I used to spend in less than a year on film and processing. Forget about the cost of slide holders and filing cabinets. The way I look at it, buying the latest and greatest body and accessories every 2 years is costing me less now in the digital era than my hobby used to in the days of film. The expensive part of the system is the lenses. Pentax does more than just about any other manufacturer to ensure backwards compatibility with their lenses. I guess you must be glad that you weren't a Canon shooter prior to 1987 when they ditched their entire line to start over with the EOS system.</p>

Ozge - I remember about 9 years ago I was in a similar situation with respect to my assessment of my photography skills and equipment. I thought my composition showed some potential and was often quite good, but my photos were rather dull and unimpressive. I blamed the lacklustre images on my equipment and technique and bought some books on photography to learn what to buy. I learned that the body is just a box to control how much light reaches the film. I also learned that my lenses were probably not really to blame, especially not my 50/1.8. Most likely the problem lay with the processing of the prints. To test this theory I ran a roll of slide film through my camera and lo and behold, they looked awesome. Exactly the look I had been wanting.

 

Moral of the story is don't be too quick to blame yourself or your equipment for images that look dull and uninspiring if you're judging by prints. Try slide film. It doesn't improve your composition, but you just may realize that your equipment isn't to blame. At the very least, it's a cheap experiment and may give you an idea of where your equipment and your ability to properly expose film are at.

 

Now don't go reading into this that print film is somehow inferior to slide film. In fact it has many advantages to slide film and if you don't know what they are, then there is one more thing for you to research. Perhaps many of your archived negatives contain stunning photos which the print processing failed to do justice to. All I'm saying is that slides pretty much reveal what was exposed on the film - same as the negative; whereas prints are totally at the mercy of some photo lab tech or computer algorithm which may or may not (more often the latter in my experience) know how to generate a great print.

I've got a lot of lenses and having too many lenses makes your backpack too heavy and your wallet too light. My two indispensable lenses for landscape/nature photography are the 17-40L and 70-200/4L. Next one to grab depends on what I'm intending to shoot but I'll pick from the 10-22, 100 macro or 400/5.6 (or take them all!).

 

Based on what you indicate you'd like to shoot and my experiences with my lenses, I'd start with the 70-200 (alternatively consider the new 70-300 IS - it's getting great reviews and IS is a blessing if you're less than meticulous about tripod usage) and the kit lens. Next I'd recommend a 17-40 but only if you're unhappy with the kit lens in comparison with the 70-200 (give it a few months). Finally think long and hard about how important macro photography is. You'll get great 0.5x (approx) with the 70-200 and a 500D close-up lens (why doesn't Canon make this in 67mm filter size!?) for less weight, bulk and expense than the otherwise great 100/2.8 macro.

 

As for the 35/2.0, I've got 28, 50 and 85 primes at f/1.8 and really rarely use them for landscapes. A couple times I've done some shallow DOF work, but usually they're left at home when shooting landscapes/nature. I use them for low-light no-flash people photography (indoor/street) or for their small size when travelling.

I'm a little surprised by all the nay-sayers here. Are you buying the lenses for resale value or are you buying them to take pictures with? What you've indicated you're interested in buying makes for a nice 2-lens travel kit. As long as your 20D works, your lenses will still be of value to you.

Thanks for the many good replies so far. My comments to your replies:

 

Patricia: I agree, the 2200 really plugs up the shadows, this is the first where I've found it to be really unacceptable. I like the simplicity of printing with photoshop and don't want to add another step with a RIP, nor do I want to spend more money now, but if that's truly the answer, then maybe I'll try. As for recovering some detail with a print adjustment layer, whenever I do that to get acceptable results, the blacks become washed out and I'm not happy with the print. I should have said that I've tried that before.

 

David: Again, when I try this the blacks seem washed out in the print if I recover enough shadow to not get the blotchy look in the print.

 

Brett: Yours recovered maybe a little more shadows than I wanted on screen (I like the face peering out of the blackness) but may work in print as the blacks still look fairly black. I'll try when I return home tonight.

 

Roger: black pt compensation turned off yielded even worse results.

Not sure it will work, but have you tried in Adobe Bridge: Tools/Cache/Build Cache for Subfolders on the parent directory?

Jeff,

 

I'm trying to decide on a dedicated 4x6 printer myself. I'm thinking for your intended usage the extra speed, print durability (handling by others), lack of plugged ink cartridges, etc. one of the HiTi dye-sub printers might be more suitable for your needs. They've got some very affordable models and the 730 line will even do 4x6, 5x7 and 6x8 prints. I've requested some print samples from them and am curious to see how they turn out.

 

I know I didn't answer your question, but dye-subs rarely seem to get talked about on this forum, so I wasn't sure if you knew that ones comparable in price to the PictureMate existed - I know I didn't until about a week ago. The nay-sayers mostly bash the dye-subs on print longevity. HiTi claims 50 years which would be similar to a traditional print, but one must be wary of a potential bias in their claim!

 

Here's their website:

 

http://www.hitouchimaging.com/

 

... and a couple of reviews to get you started if you are interested:

 

http://www.steves-digicams.com/2004_reviews/hiti_730ps_pg2.html

 

http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRINT/HT730PS/HT7.HTM

 

Somewhere out there I read a review of one of HiTi's printers which reviewed printing direct from the card in pretty good detail, but I'll be darned if I can't remember where it was. Bottomline was that it was quite good, but a little image editing in a computer first is always better (duh!).

Bigger, brighter viewfinder would be the most critical upgrade; this would be the dealmaker for me. 1/500 flash sync, true spot metering, interchangeable viewfinder screens and a focusing system like the EOS3 had would be nice as well. I'll stick with the current sensor, frame rate and crop factor (now that more super Wide-angle options are available).

And here's the same area with relative colorimetric soft proofing turned on. This is just what the print looks like as well.<div></div>

Oh, and while I'm at it, here's a crop (at 50%) of the shadow areas.<div></div>

And here it is with perceptual rendering.<div></div>

Here's the relative colorimetric soft proof with black point compensation.<div></div>

I've got a problem with an image I'm trying to print. It has a

heavily shadowed area with important details. When I print the

image, the shadowed areas come out looking all "blobby" and

desaturated and I find the print to be quite horrific; whereas I

find the image on screen to be quite pleasing. I am printing with an

Epson 2200 printer using relative colorimetric with black point

compensation as my rendering intent on Epson's ehnanced matte paper

at 2880 dpi with the matte black ink cartridge. I'm allowing

Photoshop CS2 to do the color management. My monitor is calibrated

so that is not the problem.

 

Soft proofing does show fairly well what the image looks like in

print. To help you understand what I'm seeing I have included

(assuming I can figure out how to attach images) a small copy of the

image as well as what the image looks like with both relative

colorimetric soft proofing and perceptual soft proofing. These

images were captured using screen capture. Please help me rescue

this print.<div></div>

Having upgraded from the 20-35 to the 17-40 myself I would say that if you need the extra 3mm on the wide end and or need sharper wide open performance than go for it. It sounds as though you tend to shoot mostly scenics and therefore likely shoot stopped down in the f/8 to f/16 range so I do not think the gains in wide open performance will be of any benefit to you. In that case you will mainly be gaining the extra 3mm on the wide end. Your choice.

I'd like a fast prime in this range so I'm awaiting the comparison of this lens to the EF 28/1.8. Canon's lens is smaller, lighter, cheaper, full-frame, wider and has closer -focusing than the Sigma. The Sigma is faster and if it has noticeably better wide-open sharpness than the 28, I'll likely get it, else I'll spring for the 28. Despite some comments (I have no experience with the FF 28/1.8) on the 28/1.8's performance, I'm thinking that a 1.6x crop on a full-frame lens might actually be better than a reduced-frame lens. We'll see soon enough I suppose.

I once used a 2GB CF card to transfer a large file between 2 computers with CF readers. Next day went out to take photos of a friend's opening concert for her first CD release. I used erase all to get rid of a couple test images and was quite suprised when after only 40 or so images, my 2GB CF card was full! Couldn't erase the large file I transferred with the camera without formatting and loosing the 40 images I already had. Since then I always format the card (as well as a second CF card)!

I have the 50/1.8, 85/1.8 and 100/2.8 macro lenses so I'm experienced with all the lenses you specified. I agonized over the same decision as you and finally I bought the 100 macro thinking that I'll get a dual purpose macro/portrait lens in one shot. I love the lens, but soon became tired of it's size, 2.8 aperture limitation and more difficult focussing (slower AF as well as difficult to fine tune manually as previously mentioned). As a result I bought an 85/1.8 too. Now that has become one of my most used lenses and I have no regrets about buying it in addition to my 50 and 100 (I too thought this was a bit of a small gap to squeeze another lens into). It is a very different lens than either the 50 or 100 macro. It's nearly a perfect lens, I just wish it would focus a little closer when on a film body, on a 1.6 crop body I don't really miss the closer focussing.

I own the 5.6 and agonized over the same decision for years. One day I saw a great deal on a used 4L and sprung for it. The reason for getting it was I switched from a 4 lens travel kit to a 3 lens travel kit: 20-35 + 28-135 + 100-300/5.6L + 50/1.8 to 17-40 + 70-200 + 50/1.8. I haven't put the 5.6 on since the switch, but can't bear to sell it either. Image quality is fairly close with the 5.6 being a little warmer. Build quality/ergonomics is a no brainer. My dislikes of the 4L are: 67mm filter size (I've got a lot of 58mm lenses and filters, who wants to buy and carry around more filters?), no 67mm close-up filters (I use 72mm 500D and a step up ring, it's a big pain to try to use with a lens hood, but possible), no IS (the addition of IS would make this a KILLER lens!).

To weigh in on the 17-40 vs 28-135 debate, when I'm carrying multiple lenses, the 28-135 stays at home always and I bring along the 17-40 and 70-200 (and add in any primes I think I might need from the following: 50/1.8, 85/1.8, 100/2.8 macro). If on the other hand I'm only going with one lens, I go with the most suitable prime for my needs if in low light (usually the 50 as it's also small) or else the 28-135 if the light will be good or I need the versatility. I guess I'm saying I find them both (17-40 & 28-135) useful, but don't look at them as being complementary, but rather an either/or proposition when heading out. If I had to loose only one lens out of my line-up it would be the 28-135 and that's because it's a dust-sucking, lens-creeping, slow lens (but I still love it!).

I'll second your observation Andrew. I was very suprised when testing lenses that the 135 setting was between 100 and 135, I'd estimate about 110mm when compared to the 70-200/4L, 100-300/5.6L and 100/2.8 macro. Doesn't bother me much, for a few years this was definately my most used lens, but it doesn't find a spot in my bag much anymore - too many lenses to choose from.

"I don't shoot with long telephoto very often but more scenes and people". Here's the trouble I run into. People lenses should be fast with shallow DOF, for scenes often DOF is maximized and then a slow zoom is convenient and lightweight. I find the 17-40/4L and 70-200/4L are sufficient for the scene photos. The 35/2.0 and 85/1.8 combo is perfect for people photos. This is on a 35mm film body. Now that my 20D is on the way my zooms will still be fine (but I may wish for wider) and the 50/1.8 and 85/1.8 will be sufficient for people. I just wonder what I'll get to get me back to 35/2.0.

 

As for your issues I'd probably keep the 50 and 85 and get a 17-40 for now. That's what I often travel with +/- the 70-200/4L depending on if I can carry an extra lens. Live with that awhile and decide if you really need a longer zoom. Oh and I'd keep at least one of the wider primes for low-light work even if you don't use it a bunch, you'll be glad you have it from time to time.