Can you photograph a whole trip with a walkabout lens (Pentax 28-105mm lens)?

[KenElevenShadows]

Can you photograph a whole trip with the Pentax 28-105mm lens?
 

Can you use just one lens on an entire trip? A “walkabout lens” can be an excellent way to lighten the load during a trip while still getting high-quality images. I used the relatively inexpensive Pentax 28-105mm lens exclusively for several trips. This is how it went.

 

 

https://photofocus-com.webpkgcache.com/doc/-/s/photofocus.com/photography/can-you-photograph-a-whole-trip-with-the-pentax-28-105mm-lens/

 

 

[KuruPrionz]

My "all-rounder" is something I stumbled onto at Goodwill - a Tamron 24-70 3.3 to 5.6 zoom. 

I bought it with a Canon EOS film camera for $35 and sold the camera for $20. It's a bit older, made in Japan. 

Stopped down it's sharp and it focuses nicely on my 6d.

 

It's all I'd need on a walkabout. I used it quite a bit on my T2i to photograph stuff I was selling so I've gotten more than $15 of use out of it already. 

Not a great lens but a good one. 

[KenElevenShadows]

That's the classic middle range of the trinity right there. Great price too.

[KuruPrionz]

23 minutes ago, KenElevenShadows said:

That's the classic middle range of the trinity right there. Great price too.

True but I'd rather have the range on your Pentax, with 105 you can make excellent portraits and reach a little farther, which is useful for everything sometimes. 

Late evening light/sunset through clouds over the islands and the sea, from inside through a window from well up a hill, just my camera phone. Right in the middle of "civilization" too, surreal.

What I love about cellphone camera is the big viewing screen and that you can alwayys have it handy. 

[KenElevenShadows]

That looks very appealing.

 

Cameras in many ways are much more enjoyable to use than DSLRs, partially because of the way we can control them and see everything. It's nice having a big screen you can see and tap.

 

I wrote this article "Why don’t cameras use smartphone technology?"

 

"It’s a question many photographers, including myself, have been asking for years. Why don’t mirrorless and DSLR cameras utilize smartphone technology and apps?"

[KuruPrionz]

11 hours ago, KenElevenShadows said:

That looks very appealing.

 

Cameras in many ways are much more enjoyable to use than DSLRs, partially because of the way we can control them and see everything. It's nice having a big screen you can see and tap.

 

I wrote this article "Why don’t cameras use smartphone technology?"

 

"It’s a question many photographers, including myself, have been asking for years. Why don’t mirrorless and DSLR cameras utilize smartphone technology and apps?"

That;s a solid article. I learned to shoot with a Nikon F, absolutely primitive but very good at the same time because Nikon did not make any bad lenses at that time. 

 

The biggest advantage of a larger sensor is it allows bigger diameterr lenses to cover the sensor field, which can be made with larger apertures, allowing shallow depth of field. 

Being more of a portrait photographer than anything else, I like being able to open up and add fluffy fuzzys to the image. 

 

And yes, Bellingham is a beautiful small city near the Canandian border on the coast - trying to make up for Dad's poor decision. He was doing well in Santa Barbara and decided the air bothered his sinuses and moved to Fresno, BAD dad!!!! 😇 Bellingham used to be inexpensive, but not now. Housing prices are insane, I was lucky to get in when I could. 

 

When we get our inevitable earthquake eruptions, wild fires, tsunamis, etc., everybody will run away. Meanwhile... 

I can't really think of a more beautiful place and there is diversity of climate and terrain all close by. 

Just don't ask me about Whatcom County drivers, I am from California, where people are actually trying to get somewhere and are aware of their surroundings because do or die. 🤣

 

[KenElevenShadows]

10 hours ago, KuruPrionz said:

That;s a solid article. I learned to shoot with a Nikon F, absolutely primitive but very good at the same time because Nikon did not make any bad lenses at that time. 

 

The biggest advantage of a larger sensor is it allows bigge diameterr lenses to cover the sensor field, which can be made with larger apertures, allowing shallow depth of field. 

Being more of a portrait photographer than anything else, I like being able to open up and add fluffy fuzzys to the image. 

 

And yes, Bellingham is a beautiful small city near the Canandian border on the coast - trying to make up for Dad's poor decision. He was doing well in Santa Barbara and decided the air bothered his sinuses and moved to Fresno, BAD dad!!!! 😇 Bellingham used to be inexpensive, but not now. Housing prices are insane, I was lucky to get in when I could. 

 

When we get our inevitable earthquake eruptions, wild fires, tsunamis, etc., everybody will run away. Meanwhile... 

I can't really think of a more beautiful place and there is diversity of climate and terrain all close by. 

Just don't ask me about Whatcom County drivers, I am from California, where people are actually trying to get somewhere and are aware of their surroundings because do or die. 🤣

 

 

Thanks, glad you like the article.

 

I have not used them, but the Nikon Z-Mount glass is supposed to be amazing. And part of the reason is what you touch on: the diameter size. I don't know why Nikon doesn't play it up more, but what they have designed with their mirrorless cameras bodes well for the future. They should play up image quality and diameter size. They have a diameter of 55mm in their Z-Mount lens. Canon is close at 54mm, but you know, everyone keeps comparing mirrorless cameras to Sony because they were innovative. However, Sony has a relatively small diameter in their mounts, somewhere around 42.5mm, if I recall correctly. What Nikon is and can do with the diameters going forward will be amazing. And it "future proofs" them for quite a while, not having to fight physics of design.

 

That place does look good. I am not sure why he felt that Santa Barbara's air bothered his senses, especially compared to Fresno.

[KuruPrionz]

39 minutes ago, KenElevenShadows said:

 

Thanks, glad you like the article.

 

I have not used them, but the Nikon Z-Mount glass is supposed to be amazing. And part of the reason is what you touch on: the diameter size. I don't know why Nikon doesn't play it up more, but what they have designed with their mirrorless cameras bodes well for the future. They should play up image quality and diameter size. They have a diameter of 55mm in their Z-Mount lens. Canon is close at 54mm, but you know, everyone keeps comparing mirrorless cameras to Sony because they were innovative. However, Sony has a relatively small diameter in their mounts, somewhere around 42.5mm, if I recall correctly. What Nikon is and can do with the diameters going forward will be amazing. And it "future proofs" them for quite a while, not having to fight physics of design.

 

That place does look good. I am not sure why he felt that Santa Barbara's air bothered his senses, especially compared to Fresno.

Good for Nikon, I'm glad to hear they are moving forward after many decades of clinging to their outdated F mount. Canon took the hit a long time ago and probably lost quite a few customers when they bailed on their old mount and started fresh with the EF mount. Canon's 54mm mount is pretty future proof as well, they still sell an 85mm 1.2 lens and a 135 2.0 (I miss this lens, should have kept it!!!). 

I've got a well used Pentax 135 2.5 K mount that I adapt to EOS and a Nikon F mount Tokina 135 2.8 and both are pretty decent lenses but the 135 2.0L was a special lens. 

 

I have no idea why Dad did that either. He was a great father and I am grateful for all the awesome things he was for his 4 kids. But leaving Santa Barbara for Fresno? YIKES!!!

When it came time to sell the family home in Fresno we got about $150k for a 3 bedroom in a nice older neighborhood near the Uni. That same house in a similar location in SB would be worth umpty bajillion and back in the early 50's Santa Barbara prices were not really much higher than Fresno's. What's done is done and here I am in Bellingham. No regrets, I love it here. 

[KenElevenShadows]

4 minutes ago, KuruPrionz said:

Good for Nikon, I'm glad to hear they are moving forward after many decades of clinging to their outdated F mount. Canon took the hit a long time ago and probably lost quite a few customers when they bailed on their old mount and started fresh with the EF mount. Canon's 54mm mount is pretty future proof as well, they still sell an 85mm 1.2 lens and a 135 2.0 (I miss this lens, should have kept it!!!). 

I've got a well used Pentax 135 2.5 K mount that I adapt to EOS and a Nikon F mount Tokina 135 2.8 and both are pretty decent lenses but the 135 2.0L was a special lens. 

 

I have no idea why Dad did that either. He was a great father and I am grateful for all the awesome things he was for his 4 kids. But leaving Santa Barbara for Fresno? YIKES!!!

When it came time to sell the family home in Fresno we got about $150k for a 3 bedroom in a nice older neighborhood near the Uni. That same house in a similar location in SB would be worth umpty bajillion and back in the early 50's Santa Barbara prices were not really much higher than Fresno's. What's done is done and here I am in Bellingham. No regrets, I love it here. 

 

Nikon and Canon may have positioned them well against Sony with the large diameter mount. Sony, though, is a verrrrry large company with deep pockets. Whether this bodes well or not remains to be seen. And what I mean by that is that their camera division might be relatively insignificant, and they might choose to put their money elsewhere....or they may put their financial might behind the cameras in the future and really innovate and blow everyone out of the water. They appeared to be doing the latter before. However, cameras aren't exactly a hot selling commodity nowadays with more and omre innovations on the cameraphone front.

 

I really wish I could afford to live in Santa Barbara, but everything is so expensive everywhere. But I am grateful I have what I have and got it when I got it all the same.

[KuruPrionz]

Sony is HUGE, Canon is big and Nikon is the smaller of the 3 but they've established a presence as a premier camera/lens brand.

Leica is not a big company either butt they seem to hang on somehow. Of course they are historically significant and make great stuff. If money were no object, I'd shoot Leica. They've made legendary lenses for a long time. 

[KenElevenShadows]

I have this Leica point-and-shoot, the Dlux 4. I think it was made around 2010. I still use it because it's such a nice little camera. Now, I wish I had a full-blown Leica. I can only imagine what that might be like. I think for anything that you are carrying around, Leica must be super nice to have. For studio work, maybe a Hasselblad. Dunno. Haven't used either.

 

I've mostly used Nikon. I had an old Canon and Ricoh film camera a long time ago. And I have a Pentax. That's mostly my SLR/DSLR experience.

[KuruPrionz]

22 hours ago, KenElevenShadows said:

I have this Leica point-and-shoot, the Dlux 4. I think it was made around 2010. I still use it because it's such a nice little camera. Now, I wish I had a full-blown Leica. I can only imagine what that might be like. I think for anything that you are carrying around, Leica must be super nice to have. For studio work, maybe a Hasselblad. Dunno. Haven't used either.

 

I've mostly used Nikon. I had an old Canon and Ricoh film camera a long time ago. And I have a Pentax. That's mostly my SLR/DSLR experience.

I bought and sold camera gear for many years and have owned and used quite a few systems. 

 

Overall most practical and bullet proof was a Nikon F, my camera repair person told me that he'd only seen 2 of them that he could not fix. One fell 14 stories in NYC and hit the sidewalk, the other was found buried in the sand in a shallow part of the ocean. Great lenses too. 

 

I haven't checked prices lately but I used to own a couple of Zeiss Ikon Contax II cameras, the only real competition for the Leica M in the 50's. Zeiss Sonnar 50mm 1.5 lens, super sharp. It took gorgeous photos, was easy to focus accurately and was nearly silent with just a small click. 

 

I loved my Voightlander Bessa (first version, no rangefinder), that was a little trickier to use but a 6x9 centimeter negative makes a beautiful print. 

All that said, I don't miss film. I took photography courses in college during the film days, then lab assisted and worked in a custom photo lab. One tires of all the nasty chemicals and processes and the time consumed. Which is to say nothing of all the law enforcement and medical film I developed and printed. Add in the garden variety perverts and there probably isn't anything you can name that I haven't seen. The motto in the first lab I worked was "As long as I don't have to smell it", which referred to images from the police and coroner's office. 

 

Nope, don't miss it!!!! 😁

[KenElevenShadows]

I don't miss it either, although I would really miss not seeing film prints that people create. I love the way film looks. I think for the sort of images that I make as well as how much I enjoy the process of using a digital camera, I would not want to go back to film as anything more than "dabbling". So yeah....right with you!

 

Before I got into photography seriously, and certainly way before I ever conceived of doing night photography, I would sometimes speak to this guy who was a former National Geographic photographer. He would tell me things like how he dropped a Nikon F off a cliff for fifty feet and how he would retrieve it and it would still be working. There's pretty much no way that I could drop any of my cameras off a fifty-foot cliff and still have them operable, I think.

[KuruPrionz]

It's a different world now, you'd probably have to send your Pentax back to Pentax and wait to hear that parts and labor equal the cost of a new camera. 

The world of the camera repair shop is changed forever. A large percentage of parts inventory for my friend that used to fix cameras was shelf after shelf full of broken "dead" cameras that he scavenged parts from to fix customer's cameras. 

 

I've always been fairly careful with my gear, havne't dropped or broken anything yet (knock on wood!). I use a tripod fairly often and consider it paramount, if you are serious about photography you will own a high quality tripod and it will outlive ALL of your cameras. A few years back I had an opportunity to purchase a Gitzo Reporter, all metal, not light, very beautifully worn but good for another hundred years. $30 on craigslist, I snapped it up and sold my Manfrottos (which were pretty nice but not in the same league). 

 

I recently did a shoot with a model, 4 different looks and one shot required 2 to 3 images to make a single image. Instead of having to run 3 or 4 rolls of 36 frame film, print them and choose which ones were the best, I just popped them up on the screen and quickly picked out the better images. All that chemistry, nada!!!! All that time and paper, nope!!!

 

Then I opened the best shots in Elements, did a few minor tweaks on most of them - with total control and the option to undo anything that didn't go quite as it could. Done. 

I stacked 3 layers for a few shots, realized I only needed 2 layers and using selection and opacity controls I made my images, swiftly and precisely. 

 

I didn't need a garbage can, not once!!!! Film processing created all sorts of waste - both time and stuff. 

[KenElevenShadows]

True.

 

And your point about a tripod....getting a good, solid tripod is important. It will outlive all your cameras.

 

People always raise an eyebrow when I say this, but the camera is often the least important part. Photographer aside, the lens is far more important. And because a tripod can last for a lifetime, far greater effort should be put into what you want from a tripod and getting a quality tripod. I've had my tripods for ten years. I've had five camera bodies in that time.

[KuruPrionz]

1 hour ago, KenElevenShadows said:

True.

 

And your point about a tripod....getting a good, solid tripod is important. It will outlive all your cameras.

 

People always raise an eyebrow when I say this, but the camera is often the least important part. Photographer aside, the lens is far more important. And because a tripod can last for a lifetime, far greater effort should be put into what you want from a tripod and getting a quality tripod. I've had my tripods for ten years. I've had five camera bodies in that time.

Yes, for me an idea comse first. Sometimes it is my idea, sometimes it is somebody else's idea and often enough it is a shared creativity with the photographer and the model OR the idea is right there in front of you and you just go with it. 

 

After ideas comes the ability to see the light and know what to do with it. Next up is seeing a background that does not detract or distract from the subject, whatever that may be. 

 

THEN the lens and knowing which lens can become a part of creating the vision. 

After that it becomes complicated. Some of us can shoot without a tripod and I might do that if I know it will work. 

At the same time, shooting the ghost image i posted a day or two ago without a tripod would be a nightmare. Shooting your night photos would be impossible without a sturdy, reliable tripod or at least a really nice sandbag and a place to put it. 

But in the end it comes down to the camera body and the tripod, you might be able to shoot with just the body and you might not. 

You might be able to shoot without the tripod and you might not. 

 

When I shot live dance performances, there was no way I was going to use a tripod. Other times it's the only way to get the shot and you need the best tripod you can get.