AdamJRed
Leading Member
I've been using the V1 for a while now, and a camera that I was unsure about has turned out to be an amazing performer. There are plenty of small items I would like changed, but as a whole it is so very fast and produces such great images that I am very very happy with it.
When I purchased the camera I got the two lens kit and shortly there after I picked up the 10-100 lens separately.
I went out multiple times with the 2-lens kit, and then sometimes just the 10-100. I've decided after my experience to send the 10-100 back and keep the 10-30/30-110 pair.
There were no absolute 'deal breakers' for me with the 10-100, but the summation of the following negatives, made it the least appealing option to me.
-The 2 to 3 seconds of delay from pressing power-on to lens extension at times frustrated me. If I was thinking ahead I would keep the barrel locked in extended position, but I didn't always have that opportunity and in a rush that extension seemed painfully slow.
-The ability to manually control focal length, as well as know with some accuracy what your focal length was, is more important to me than I thought. About half to 3/4 of my photos I prefer to set my focal length first BEFORE framing, I realize that not everyone needs or wants to do this but it was very difficult on the 10-100 because there was no precise way to set FL and there was no real indicator to what FL was being used other than the little bar graph on the screen, so the best I could do was estimate. I should point out that for videos, the power zoom produced better videos than manual zooming, if I was primarily doing video work then my opinions would be different.
-The size of the lens was not something that tended to bother me, although in its extended form it became quite large, I am used to using similar sized lenses on other camera systems (NEX, etc.) I did find that the lens was really heavier then I cared for, it didn't balance well on the camera, it didn't hang well from any strap, and it was too heavy for me to be comfortable with using only a wrist strap. With the lens locked in the extended position it was worse in all of those aspects. I tended to find I didn't mind the lens or its balance until about 30mins of carrying it around in anything other than a bag. In almost all circumstances I preferred carrying with either the 10-30 or 30-110.
-Probably my last issue was the image quality. I did not find any issues with sharpness, and honestly at focal lengths under 80mm I felt it had better contrast than either of the 2 Kits, although I wasn't impressed with edge sharpness on my 10-100. My 'issue' was with the lens speed. With a maximum speed of f/4.5 at the wide end and f/5.6 at telephoto I felt like I was always shooting f/5 or f/5.6. When I compare my images as a 'group' compared to when I've used the two-lens setup I have alot more f/3.5, f/3.8, and f/4 images, especially indoors. That's a 1/3 to 2/3 stop advantage at times, or the difference between the image at ISO 3200 vs ISO 2000, I'll take that advantage.
I think if my focus was more heavily on the V1 being a video system that I also take photos with, the 10-100 would be my goto choice. But when I want to grab a camera for taking photos, in the end I liked both using - and the image output of the 2 lens setup, which are really the most important aspects for me.
The fact that 10-100 carries a premium of $500 over buying the 30-110 (to augment a baisc kit) is also something that should be considered. I'd rather use that $500 on the SB-N5 and/or FT1...
There just didn't seem to be alot of information out there about comparing these, other than plenty of people who were very satisfied with their 10-100 (frankly, I am/was too, its just not 'as-good' for me as the two lens setup) so I wanted to share my experience...
When I purchased the camera I got the two lens kit and shortly there after I picked up the 10-100 lens separately.
I went out multiple times with the 2-lens kit, and then sometimes just the 10-100. I've decided after my experience to send the 10-100 back and keep the 10-30/30-110 pair.
There were no absolute 'deal breakers' for me with the 10-100, but the summation of the following negatives, made it the least appealing option to me.
-The 2 to 3 seconds of delay from pressing power-on to lens extension at times frustrated me. If I was thinking ahead I would keep the barrel locked in extended position, but I didn't always have that opportunity and in a rush that extension seemed painfully slow.
-The ability to manually control focal length, as well as know with some accuracy what your focal length was, is more important to me than I thought. About half to 3/4 of my photos I prefer to set my focal length first BEFORE framing, I realize that not everyone needs or wants to do this but it was very difficult on the 10-100 because there was no precise way to set FL and there was no real indicator to what FL was being used other than the little bar graph on the screen, so the best I could do was estimate. I should point out that for videos, the power zoom produced better videos than manual zooming, if I was primarily doing video work then my opinions would be different.
-The size of the lens was not something that tended to bother me, although in its extended form it became quite large, I am used to using similar sized lenses on other camera systems (NEX, etc.) I did find that the lens was really heavier then I cared for, it didn't balance well on the camera, it didn't hang well from any strap, and it was too heavy for me to be comfortable with using only a wrist strap. With the lens locked in the extended position it was worse in all of those aspects. I tended to find I didn't mind the lens or its balance until about 30mins of carrying it around in anything other than a bag. In almost all circumstances I preferred carrying with either the 10-30 or 30-110.
-Probably my last issue was the image quality. I did not find any issues with sharpness, and honestly at focal lengths under 80mm I felt it had better contrast than either of the 2 Kits, although I wasn't impressed with edge sharpness on my 10-100. My 'issue' was with the lens speed. With a maximum speed of f/4.5 at the wide end and f/5.6 at telephoto I felt like I was always shooting f/5 or f/5.6. When I compare my images as a 'group' compared to when I've used the two-lens setup I have alot more f/3.5, f/3.8, and f/4 images, especially indoors. That's a 1/3 to 2/3 stop advantage at times, or the difference between the image at ISO 3200 vs ISO 2000, I'll take that advantage.
I think if my focus was more heavily on the V1 being a video system that I also take photos with, the 10-100 would be my goto choice. But when I want to grab a camera for taking photos, in the end I liked both using - and the image output of the 2 lens setup, which are really the most important aspects for me.
The fact that 10-100 carries a premium of $500 over buying the 30-110 (to augment a baisc kit) is also something that should be considered. I'd rather use that $500 on the SB-N5 and/or FT1...
There just didn't seem to be alot of information out there about comparing these, other than plenty of people who were very satisfied with their 10-100 (frankly, I am/was too, its just not 'as-good' for me as the two lens setup) so I wanted to share my experience...
