Hey Everyone! Hope everyone has had a great week! This week I want to talk about something new in my bag. Something I have been missing ever since I switched from full frame and went to crop senor cameras. I did not miss the image quality or even the dynamic range that full frames claim to have. But I did miss one thing. When I was shooting Full Frame cameras of course I was shooting full frame glass and very good lenses to boot. I had two out of the big three for Nikon. I had the 70-200 f2.8 and the 24-70 f2.8. Let me say I just loved these lenses. Although they did weigh a ton the image quality sharpness was outstanding!. I recently got on to Light Room and did a search for the most used focal range and the 24-70 by far has the most photo's taken. Whether I was using a crop sensor or not . This focal range was the most used and I knew that but wanted to see the numbers.
When I first got into the crop sensor sized camera's I like everyone else just had the kit lens. I quickly
upgraded the kit lens that was a 16-50 (24-75mm full frame equivalent) pancake lens with a variable aperture to the 18-105 f4 lens ( 27-157.5mm equivalent). This was a pretty good upgrade without too much money and I used this lens for quite a while but it wasn't as sharp as I wanted. What I wanted was a 24-70mm f2.8 that didn't exist. I finally upgraded to a Zeiss 16-70mm f4 (24-105mm equivalent) Lens and this was better but not by much but was more compact. I still didn't have the large aperture that I was used to at 2.8 so I got a 35mm 1.8 (52mm equivalent) and a 24mm 2.8 (36mm equivalent) But I still didn't have the zoom with the wide aperture that I was used to with my Nikon setup.
Finally about a year and a half ago Sony announced a 16-55mm f2.8 lens was coming . I got a little excited until I saw the price and it cost more than my camera did. They also came out with a longer zoom a 70-350 variable zoom lens which I got at a lower price. This was a fantastic lens and I could only imagine how the one I wanted was. So I stuck with the kit I had for another year. I only buy one big item a year if I need to in camera gear whether its upgrading older equipment or something new. This year I finally bit the bullet and invested in the 16-55 f2.8 lens. And invest is the right word. Its a very expensive lens but if I remember right I paid about the same price for my Nikon full frame but it was 10 years ago. There was another contender by Tamron a 17-70mm f2.8. But all of the reviews talked about how the image quality wasn't quite as good as the Sony and that's why I was upgrading in the first place. It almost half the price of the Sony but quality won out and I got the Sony. The lens is still new to me but so far I love it . The Images are sharp and crisp! It feels like a quality lens and it is not as large as the Tamron. Size was a big factor when I went from full frame to crop sensor size. So all around I am happy with my purchase and my kit is about as good as it gets as far as I am concerned. I am a 99% photography only shooter with almost no video. A rarity these days.
So my main kit now consist of a Sony A6500 body, a Sony 10-18mm F4 the new lens Sony 16-55 f2.8mm and the Sony 70-350mm f4.5-6.3. This kit gives me a full frame equivalent range of 15-525mm Range. This is the kit that I leave in my camera bag all the time and are my go to. I do have other specialty lenses that I use for food or Star or Street photography but this is my main kit. Which lately I haven't used a lot but plan to making a change to that situation.
So until next weeks discussion grab your kit and get outside and shoot!