Lens Lust

Found an excuse to go to a local camera shop (Inkley's, a Ritz affiliate) that stocks Pentax equipment. Wanted to pick up a step-up adapter, which is a thingy that allows you to put filters on a lens that are larger than the threads on the front of that lens. Saves you having to buy too many filters. Just buy one large enough for your largest lens then buy adapters to put it on all the smaller lenses.

Anyway, while there I looked at two wide angle lenses, the Pentax DA 10-17 fisheye, and the Sigma 10-20. I have lusted after the Sigma for awhile and I wanted to look at them both. They are both unique lenses and not really comparable despite the similiarity of their focal length. Here is what I thought, in no particular order:

Pentax DA 10-17 F3.5-4.5 Fisheye:

What a wild point of view! This lens focal length is equivalent to 15-26mm in film camera terms. The widest I had for my Canon was 20mm. And this lens is fisheye too which really creates a uniquely distorted field of view. It could be a fun lens to play with perspective. The feel is pretty good, not as heavy as I expected but heavier and more solid than the DA 18-55 "Kit" zoom. The zoom ring is light to turn and not particularly damped.

Sigma 10-20mm F4-5.6:

What a BIG Solid chunk of lens. This thing is huge, and being an EX lens (Sigmas designation for "Pro" glass) this thing just feels well put together. Did I mention it was huge? It is really large in diameter... it feels......good! The zoom is MUCH more tight and takes more effort to move but it feels like if I bump it accidentally, it will stay put. This lens will definitely stay on my lust list. It will have to wait for lots of other things, but one day it will be bought and I think I will take some magnificent pictures with it.