I'll just stick this on my Amazon wish list with the
hopes that some blog reader feels abnormally
generous during the holidays and want to send one along.
I won't be holding my breath....
What is it and why do I feel like I want one. So, apparently Sigma has decided to kick everyone else's ass in the lens making arena with their "ART" lenses. I thought it was silly until I bought the 50mm Art lens from a friend who found the lens so compelling that he bought a Nikon version and a D610 to use it with even though he primarily shoots with Leica and Canon. He just couldn't turn down a bargain. But he was not well suited to a life divided between two primary systems and an orphan system so he turned to me and let me have the lens and body very inexpensively. I didn't really needs the body and sold it a short time later but the lens wowed me and I've kept it on the front of the D810 most of the time I've owned it.
When Sigma announced the 24-35mm f2.0 Art zoom lens I was immediately interested but, as a portrait shooter mainly, I don't have a pressing need for the focal lengths that this one covers. And I've been trying to rationalize my "need" to purchase of it ever since.
I have this ongoing fantasy of being able to run the core of the business with a couple of really good cameras and just three lenses; this one to cover all my wide angle needs, the 50mm f1.4 I already have in hand and an 85mm f1.4 Art lens the minute it becomes available.
From everything I've read on review sites this lens really does deliver. While not quite as sparkling as the single focal length varieties from the same company its performance as the fastest zoom lens available for full frame cameras is at least as good as many of the prime lenses being offered by the traditional camera companies, like Nikon and Canon.
Of course, this concept of the three lens "perfect system" is kind of silly for me. As a portrait photographer I should be focusing on 50-85-105 and 135 and leave the wide stuff for the people who like it and can use it well. But hope always springs up anew. I'm just waiting for the client who says, "We need to do some annual report work under low light with some really dramatic angles. Do you have lens that does that?" I don't right now but as soon as the "ink" is dry on the contract I'll be heading out the door to grab one.
Unless one of my many adoring fans just happens to toss one in a Fedex box and send it in this direction....... Santa?
3 comments:
I would have been ecstatic with this lens in 1978. That was the year I switched to Nikon from Minolta and purchased the 24mm f/2 and 35mm f/2 as my key lenses. Having that range in one lens would have been wonderful!
I'm a wide shooter and I'd absolutely love this lens. The size, however, is just ridiculous. I'll stick with my primes for the time being.
"ridiculous"??? You do understand that it's a professional tool, it combine three widely used focal lengths and it's the first f2.0 zoom of it's kind. Right? And it may be sharper than a lot of the primes on the market as well....
To each their own.
Post a Comment