Had a _very nice_ quiet weekend away at the Lake District. The surroundings are pretty amazing and the 3-star hotel wasn't to be sneezed at either with a lovely view across the lake and a small, but nice balcony.
The Tamron was the best rated across the board out of the ones I checked out (except for the Sigma 70mm, which is too short and too expensive). I'm pretty pleased with the price I got on it.
The only macro I wanted more was the legendary manual Tokina/Vivitar Series 1 90mm f/2.5, but it's impossible to find.
edit: and the Tamron works on full frame, too, which is great for my legion of film cameras.
Well, it's slightly more expensive than that in the Pentax mount--got mine for $385 used, shipped, w/ CPL and UV filters, box, pouch, original paperwork. It goes for about $450 new. But yeah, still a great buy.
Gear-wankers rejoice! Old/new glass arrived in the form of a beat-up Nikkor 85mm/f1.8 for the low-low price of 250€.
Not sure if I'm keeping this one as the 80-200/2.8 D is just a superb lens.
Pros compared to the 80-200/2.8:
+Much lighter even though I don't pussy around and can carry my camera-grip-tele-combo all day long.
+Focuses closer than the 80-200
+Aperture 1.8 vs. 2.8 (the f1.4 was way out of budget)
Cons:
-Noisy AF (old lens)
-Weaker build quality though optically it's naturally perfect for the price
Bokeh is pretty good for the price. I'm not very fond of the busy Helios (?) bokeh that my Nikkor 50 mm f1.8 tends to do too.
Backgrounds do go 'poof' and I'll probably get my money back nevertheless if I choose to sell it.
I just made 579 shots in 20 minutes, of which 573 were entirely useless, just black. Well that's a poorly equiped storm photographer for you
Fastest lens I own is a 50mm/F1.7 prime, 75mm on my A200 due to the crop. I wish I had a fast wide one, the 18-70 kit lens (F/3.5 - 5.6) was no good
They're not very impressive, in fact they look terrible with all the noise, but I thought I'd share them anyway. This one is probably the best, shows how much energy there is in lightning (bright white sky at 11pm, it's quite something!):
spanky, did you consider the newish Korean MF 85/1.4? It's distributed under Samyang, Rokinon, Vivitar Series 1, Bower, and Opteka names--all the same lens. Generally goes for about $250-350 new. Apparently it's a stellar performer. Nikon dudes on dpreview forums love it, Ken Rockwell says it's as sharp as or sharper than the Nikon equivalent.