Saturday, December 28, 2019

2020 gear

So we're done with another year, which strongly suggests I'm done buying things.
(No winning bids in hand right now, in other words.)

So what's on the shelf / in the bag going into 2020?

A bit of Pentax remains as the good light, bad weather option -
  • K200d body, silver (CCD, wx-sealed midrange from ~12 years ago)
  • DA∙L 18-50mm RE (sealed, silent focus, retracts to look like a thick prime)
  • several primes from the past: 50/1.7, 100/2.8, 200/4 (+ a broken 24/2.8)
  • Rikenon 70-150mm (MF) and 28-80mm Sigma (AF) zooms.

On the more active μ43 side - bodies first:
  • Lumix GX7, silver (last of the pre-4k bodies, excellent fit for me)
  • Oly EM∙10, silver (original em10, first body with live bulb/composite features)
  • Lumix GX1, black (barely worth selling, plus even better fit for me!)
  • Lumix GF2, pink (my wife's little favorite, with the 12-32mm on it)

And lenses - hmm let's make this a table since options are pretty thick in this bunch!
  • Zooms - AF is covered with 12-40, 45-150 and adapted 70-300mm zooms.
  • Primes - the wide end is covered with reasonably fast 7.5/15/20/30mm AF primes. Pentax primes take over at 50mm and beyond - plenty good enough with stabilized bodies (K200, GX7, EM10) and focus peaking on the μ43 bodies. 
  • Macro can be handled with the slow-focusing AF Zuiko 35mm macro at 1:1 or via a 10mm extension tube on other primes, or at 1:2 max with the beastly 70-300 Zuiko.
The lenses near the bottom get very little use. That's OK for now. I also have T-PK adapters so the latter two can be used on the K200d as well.


p.s. It's always something. I forgot both the Lumix 14-42ii and Olympus 14-42 IIR in my list. Either could take over for the 12-40 and do an equivalent job, except for the wide end. The 14-42ii has image stabilization that's presumably better than the GX7 and not quite as good as the EM10; one could test these to death without proving that, I'm thinking!

I've also read a bit more about μ43 'standards' regarding in-cam jpeg (and raw) lens corrections. Point one is that YI claims their cameras do that too. Point two is that since TruePic VII (EM1.1, EM10) Lumix lenses are also corrected on Oly bodies. Point 3 is that every time I read about this the waters turn muddy in a real hurry, with every owner certain of what's true and every camera maker a bit less.. precise in their declarations. So definitely use salt to taste on this matter.

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