Its on the green way in Liversedge last Sunday morning at about half seven. Bernard prefers an early morning cyclist speedfreak free walk .
Here's one that's a little bit different. Nobody has much time for 'kit lenses'. The lens bundled with a camera to shift it off the shelf as a 'starter', to get people going. They're usually the bottom of the range, or last year's model, wide to short telephoto zoom and only add £50 or so (if that even) to the price of the body. The 'bay' is full of them as people shift them on as soon as they can afford better glass. The one that came with my camera is an 18mm ~ 55mm f4~f5.6. In the scheme of things, the spotty kid left over after all the teams have been picked. I never have great expectations of it and, as I prefer to work with long lenses anyway, it tends to live in my bag, with dust on it. Last Saturday, I was trying to shoot Comet Lovejoy between icy showers from the back garden and used the ignored 18~55 to get as wide a field as possible. Waiting for a cloud to clear the comet, I swung the camera around and pointed it at Jupiter. Jupiter's the big bright spot with the flare around it, but just at the 7:00 of it, and more faintly and further away from it and at the 1:00 you can make out two of it's moons... £40, shitter kit lens, eh...
I got the 24-70 f2.8 mkii as I wanted to see what all the fuss was about over the 24-104 f4, for the added cost and you know how much more it's just not worth the money over the kit lense, plus you loose a little reach that's handy on a walk around lense, it's an amazing lense and I don't regret buying it for one min, if your a pixel peeper like me then you'd be very happy as I am, it does not make you any better of a photographer but then why would it, I get off on the technology that's contained in such a lense so tbh Id be happy with it sat on the mantle peice..haha In truth if your looking for a ultra clean ultra crisp bit of kit it has it all, the sun stars are amazing and edge to edge it pisses on the kit lense (but you have to look hard and know what to look for)! But like you say at the other end of the scale day in day out people take amazing photos with simple kit, having fancy lenses makes no difference to seeing and taking a great shot.
Totally agree. out of the lenses i use, the 24-105 is on my camera 90% of the time. Only f4, but does the job.
Little things add up. The sharper the lens is always better, but usually that's down to the tolerances in the assembly rather than the glass. The advantages of Fluorite glass speaks for itself. an extra stop is just that, one stop. You can gain that back easily without sacrificing depth of field. Priority for me would always be the acuity of the lens. I like things sharp. This is where I get most disappointed with the lenses I can afford.
