Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Breaking the buying strike.

Yesterday I stated my decision to stay with Sony and in that I also listed a couple of things I was going to discuss later; they were what my 'final' lens line-up plan was and how I had chosen to mark my decision to remain in the A mount when I broke my buying strike.

So, first things first, my 'final' lens line-up. Ok, even before that, whay do I insist on qualifying the word "final". Well thats pretty simple, because final only ever is final until a new lens is announced that makes me want to change my list. Also, occasioanlly opportunities will crop up to add something extra at little cost that I might choose to take. Now with that out of the way what is my 'final' list. Well I'll start with overall design of the list, basically its long slow high quality zooms with generally fast, high quality primes. So the list is:

Zooms:

Primes:

The Sigma 20 1.8 might look out of place in this list but really there is nothing in the a-mount better than this lens anyway.

There are a few things interesting in this list when comparing it to other brands. The first is that its a line-up that has no apologies to make. This line-up of lenses is as good as any you can get from Nikon, Canon, Pentax, or (dare I say it) Leica. At this point I should acknowledge that I know I can get a much cheaper line-up with not a huge drop in quality so why am I aiming at all these CZ's and G's? Basically because I want to give myself no excuses, no reason to think that the equipment is holding me back. In short,if I cant make great images with this line-up I should just give up any pretensions to being a photographer. And, lets be really honest, I can afford it - not all at once, it may take years to build the full line-up, but if I'm careful I can do this without taking from my family.

Secondly, what is also really interesting is that the costs are very, very similar no matter which brand I choose to go with. This line-up with Sony, Canon or Nikon all fall within a few hundred dollars of each other. So much for the myth of Sony being an expensive brand I suppose.

Now whilst this is my final wish list (until I change it) these wont be the only lenses I buy or own. I have a couple of other pieces of the glass I'm either going to just keep or buy in addition to this list. The most obvious addition will be E mount lenses. These form a completely different range and so aren't discussed any more here. The second is the Sony Easy Choice range, that is the 30 2.8 Macro, 85 2.8 SAM, and 35 1.8 DT SAM. I love that these lenses are so small, so portable and so so cheap. Given the very small investment I will almost certainly be picking up some of these.

So, how did I break my buying strike?

Today I picked up the 70-400 G, 30 2.8 DT SAM Macro and 85 2.8 DT SAM. I am so stoked.

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