Can Has Wide Angle

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Friday night I had a fitful night trying to sleep. I kept dreaming about getting an extreme wide angle lens (not a fish-eye). I found myself REALLY wanting one and my dreams were all over the place. At one point I was in a Russian five and dime with some cloak and dagger fellow and he was managing to show me just about everything BUT a camera lens. It was very surreal and I didn’t sleep well.

I am sure this was brought on by a two things. My existing urge to scratch the photo itch with something new and Cynthia getting a new lens for her camera.

Cynthia expressed an interest in doing some low-light photography and I explained that to really do this she would need to consider getting a fast fixed focal length lens. I would have loaned her one of mine gladly, but she has had adopted Pentax as her platform so off I went to The Internet to research and procure something suitable for her camera.

I found the Pentax Wide Angle SMCP-FA 35mm f/2.0 for a good price and figured this would be the thing. Once it arrived and Cynthia started playing with it I was certain we made a good decision. It’s fast and sharp and the pictures are fantastic.

Even before Cynthia started the process that lead to her getting the new lens I had been agonizing over camera decisions. I had started to look at changing platforms and was being tempted by the $300 rebate Nikon was offering on the D300 with the 18-200mm VR lens.

After my fitful night of lens dreams I thought I might just buy the Sony 11-18mm and be done with it. It’s a pricey piece of hardware and buying it would definitely put another nail in my Sony platform coffin. Not necessarily a bad thing as I am enjoying my Sony Alpha 100 and feel confident that Sony is not going to abandon the SLR market. Besides, it should hold most of it’s resale value should worse come to worse.

After discussing this with Cynthia we headed over to the Camera Exchange to talk to our friend Charlie. He said he thought they were out of stock on the lens but after looking through some cabinets produced the last remaining Sony DT 11-18mm f/4.5-5.6 Aspherical ED Super Wide Angle Zoom Lens they had and I bought it.

I love it. Sure, Tamron has announced they are developing a 10-24mm that is a bit faster but there’s no telling when it will be available, and for how much. I could have waited, I suppose, but this piece of glass is soooo much fun!

Click for full size!