Who wants a 24-48 f2 lens?

Vic Chapman wrote:

Rod McD wrote:

Hi,

A 24-48/2? Not for me. Not wide enough, not long enough. I'm happy with a choice of primes or my 18-55 for travel. The only thing that might tempt me to consider selling my 18-55 for travel would be a something like a high grade XF16-85/3.5-4.5 WR.

I understand the desire for zooms but I've never quite understood fast zooms where fast means f2.8. They're never as fast as a fast prime, and they're often as big and heavy as three or four primes of similar aperture. And I've never understood the desire for constant aperture per se unless one is shooting manual flash. TTL flash takes care of variable apertures (mostly).

We're all different.

Cheers, Rod

100% agree with you Rod.

BTW, I got a Canon FD 300mm L from Japan and a 1.4X TC from UK. Not had a chance to give it a fair trial yet because the weather is dark and gloomy and wet/snow but a couple of pics of garden birds taken through dbl glazing at 1/200 and ISO1600 still show great potential. I can't believe how good is the condition of the lens. I think the original buyer must have never used it. A real pleasure to feel a proper metal lens MF lens again. Thanks for your advice on this.

Vic

The Japanese seem to keep their gear very carefully.  I hope yours proves as good as mine.  I found my 60yo eyes and MF skills needed to be honed a bit because the DOF is so shallow.  In my case, a monopod (or obviously a tripod) improved things substantially.  The 10X magnified EVF view is my preferred MF assist mode, but it's a bit hard using that with anything but static subjects.  Let us know how you go.  I'm hoping to try mine with IBIS on my sister's Oly EM1 next time she visits.....  That'll be a stabilised 600mm equivalent in terms of FOV and might be cool for smaller birds.

Cheers, Rod