New Lens for my Camera. NOT a Brick!
May. 7th, 2022 02:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerI've started replacing some of the gear that was stolen from our car in Hawaii. The main thing I lost was a midrange zoom lens for my camera. It was expensive, a loss of over $1,000 all by itself. It's expensive because it's quality gear. Quality comes at a price. ...And that price was not just dollars but also size and weight. That lens was a brick!
I ordered a new lens online Wednesday. It arrived yesterday afternoon.
This is not a "brick" lens. I chose a lens that's smaller and lighter— and also much less expensive. Our insurance policy explicitly allows us to claim the depreciated value on items that were stolen then replace them with cheaper items, or even nothing at all, and keep the difference.
The point wasn't to pocket the money, though. The point was the smaller size and weight.
The new lens (above) is compact. I can practically close my fingers around it. Compare that to The Brick....
By the numbers, The Brick weighed in at 721 grams, or over 1.5 pounds. My new lens weighs just 141 g., a hair under 5 ounces (0.31 pounds). It'll definitely be nice to be spared of the weight and bulk when I'm out hiking— which is where I take most of my pictures.
What about image quality, though? That's a bit of an unknown. I mean, clearly it's lower quality. The new lens is 1/4 the price of the old lens, new. And I bought used, so I paid 1/6 the price! But that doesn't mean it's 1/4 (or 1/6) the quality. In photography, as in many domains, high end equipment costs way more than consumer grade stuff, often for only small gains or gains that are limited to special conditions. In the research I did online before buying I found that this cheap lens punches above its weight— and price. I'll try a few pictures around the house and the garden this weekend to see how well it works.
I ordered a new lens online Wednesday. It arrived yesterday afternoon.
This is not a "brick" lens. I chose a lens that's smaller and lighter— and also much less expensive. Our insurance policy explicitly allows us to claim the depreciated value on items that were stolen then replace them with cheaper items, or even nothing at all, and keep the difference.
The point wasn't to pocket the money, though. The point was the smaller size and weight.
The new lens (above) is compact. I can practically close my fingers around it. Compare that to The Brick....
By the numbers, The Brick weighed in at 721 grams, or over 1.5 pounds. My new lens weighs just 141 g., a hair under 5 ounces (0.31 pounds). It'll definitely be nice to be spared of the weight and bulk when I'm out hiking— which is where I take most of my pictures.
What about image quality, though? That's a bit of an unknown. I mean, clearly it's lower quality. The new lens is 1/4 the price of the old lens, new. And I bought used, so I paid 1/6 the price! But that doesn't mean it's 1/4 (or 1/6) the quality. In photography, as in many domains, high end equipment costs way more than consumer grade stuff, often for only small gains or gains that are limited to special conditions. In the research I did online before buying I found that this cheap lens punches above its weight— and price. I'll try a few pictures around the house and the garden this weekend to see how well it works.
no subject
Date: 2022-05-08 06:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-05-08 03:59 pm (UTC)Beyond the slight difference in zoom range and constant vs. variable aperture, the lenses are built to different standards. "The Brick" was built to pro standards and weighed a ton. The replacement is a kit lens and is very compact.
One feature the kit lens does have that the brick lacked is optical image stabilization. I find that more useful than the big lens's faster aperture. When I'm shooting in low light I might have my exposure as slow as 1/30 second all the way to 1/4 second. IS makes the 1/30 sec shots fairly reliable and the faster ones still worthwhile.