Yeah, again.
I say that my life changed, before Yosemite and after Yosemite.
Last early September I was able to take a short trip to Yosemite. 22 hours behind the wheel and 900 miles driven got me to enjoy one of what I consider the Landscape Photographer's Dream locations.
Tunnel View, 6:27AM on September 6th
But this article is about my 3rd phase of switching gear. Lenses this time only, my A7R V is here for the long run.
So, after Yosemite, and researching using Lightroom's Metadata tool, I realized that after I got the Sony FE 20-70mm f/4G I have shot with it 1,320 photos. Out of those, 1,012 were shot in a focal length of 28mm or longer, and only 308 were shot at shorter focal lenght. And out of those 302, half were shot at 20mm and the rest spread across 21 and 27mm.
What this means is that I don't usually shoot too wide. And when I do, I try as wide as I can that, but even 20mm is not enough.
In Yosemite, you'll see that the bulk of my wider shots were taken with the Tamron 50-300mm at 50mm in vertical panorama, later stitched in Lightroom. I preferred this to handling the heavy distortion of the 20mm focal length. And while it can be corrected in post processing, is still sometimes not wide enough and if you correct too much, end up clipping important parts of the image.
Streamlining the Kit
My first Tamron lens was a 90-300 that I bought in Adorama back in 1991 on my wedding trip. It was quite cheap, I didn't had today's budget, and as a result, it was very bad in both construction and image quality. But I couldn't afford anything better. Those were film days, and in the same trip I bought a Nikon 6006 with the Nikkor 35-135mm, my first AF with the screwdriver drive. Remember those? Super noisy and slow as a snail.
So, after the Lightroom investigation I decided to pull the plug and invest on a lens I've been eyeing for quite a while, thinking why I didn't see it in the beginning. Is the Tamron 28-200mm f/2.8-5.6. It has extremely well reviews from many photographers, especially for landscape and travel. As I mentioned recently in a DPReview post, super zooms are not what they used to be. Years ago thinking on a super-zoom was like wasting money on a lens that was too slow and too soft to be of any value. This is no longer the case, especially with this lens. Tamron has really gone a long way in quality. Maybe one of the reasons is that the higher stock owner is Sony.
I then thought that I'll use this lens for traveling whenever I need the extra reach, and the 20-70mm when I need something wider. After a few weeks I realized that I favored the 28-200 in every respect because of the extra reach and wasn't grabbing the 20-70mm anymore.
This now creates redundancy and quite a big overlap with the 50-300, so the logical option is to replace it with the 50-400mm.
The 35mm f/2.8 is a nice and compact lens, and a good way of restricting when doing street photography, which I do like once or twice a year as much, so it basically gets very little use. The 28mm side of the 28-200 is also 2.8, so I rather carry that and have the advantage of the extra reach.
The Big Gun
So, I sold the 20-70mm, the 35mm and the 50-300mm and bought a Tamron 50-400mm. Is a big and heavy fellow, I'm eating my words when I switched from Canon APS-C to Micro 4/3s back in 2012 saying that I was tired of carrying a Tokina 400mm prime around which weighted like a fire engine. Although this time I have a 61MP Full Frame sensor to render those beautiful millimeters, so I'm quite happy.
For now :)
What's next
One thing is for sure, one can't stay put in photography. You'll always looking for the next piece of gear, and while I'd want to settle with this kit, I know me and I'll keep looking for something else to get it better and more flexible. I'm now missing on the wide side. And I wasn't settling on the 20mm. If I'm going wide, I want really wide, so I'm currently searching for either a 16mm prime or a 16-35, 16-30, 17-28 or a similar range. A 14-24 sounds great but I don't think I'll ever want to go that wide. Besides, most of them don't accept filters, so right now the Tamron 16-30mm is looking like the right option. Although the Tamron is quite new, and the price is as high as the 50-400mm, which I find a bit too much for a lens that won't get much use.
There is a new kid on the block
One of the advantages of the Sony FE mount, and contrary to what it was when it was first introduced, is the amazing amount of manufacturers building lenses for it. Viltrox is one of the newer ones and come with a pretty aggressive design strategy with lenses that defy physics and economics. One of them is the 13mm f/4 with the size of a tiny prime, and the price of a nifty fifty. At less that $200 one can only ask how they did it?
So, in reality, I feel that only because of the dirt cheap price is worth to own it. Might not be idea for Astro and I'm sure it'll have some compromises, but all indicates that Viltrox is revolutionizing the market.
We'll see what comes next.