C
carbonmetrictree
Guest
I'm interested to see what people have to say about these lenses. I'm interested in the versatility, but hesitant because I'm more of a prime guy.
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Hi Andrew,
I have owned and used the 55-110 AF, the 105-210 AF and the 75-150D AF and here is what I can tell you about those:
The 55-110 is pretty darn good once stopped down to f8 or f11, almost as good as the 55 and 80 primes at those stops. Under f8 the lens is good, but not as crisp as the primes.
The 105-210 is also quite good stopped down to f8 and f11, and still very usable at f5.6, though again not in the same league as the primes. I understand there are good and bad copies of this lens, so get a return option for any you buy to try.
The 75-150 is a notch better than the older zooms above, being essentially equal to the primes at f8 and f11 though still usable at f5.6.
So bottom line is all these zooms work well if stopped down, but not really the best tools at their wider apertures if you compare them to the primes. FWIW, I have sold all of my Mamiya zooms and now only own primes for it; 24 manual fish, 35 AF, 55 AF, 80 AF new, 150/2.8 AF and 300 AF.
Cheers,
In my experience, even the best Zooms don't hold up from a distortion point of view somewhere in their range. Although I used to rely on them heavily, I now only use them on Nikon in the longer focal lengths (80-400) and for events in the case of the 24-70.
If I even think about shooting anything with apparent straight lines, I go primes only.
-bob