As part of my camera kit that I just upgraded I picked up a 24mm f/1.7 lens for the camera. Now for folks that don’t know photography can be a very expensive hobby. It would be entirely reasonable to walk into a camera store and spend thousands and still not have enough gear to be able to actually take a single photo.
I’m not a huge purchaser of gear – I’ve only ever purchased a handful of cameras myself and only two of those were something other than a decent point & shoot. However I’ve been using equipment for decades now across a couple of different manufacturers and the quality of the stuff that you can get – at least from a optical standpoint – has taken huge jumps from the stuff that I was using that was made back in the 1970’s or even in the 2000’s.
Case in point is this 24mm f/1.7 lens. It’s under 300$ when I bought it on sale. And it’s fantastic for what I paid for it.
Personally I like to shoot with Prime lenses, ones that don’t have the ability to zoom in and out of a subject. They are lighter, generally sharper, and force you to be a little more creative in the framing of your shots since you are limited to what you are able to do by the lack of a zoom on the camera. On my older film cameras I have a number of lenses ranging from the low 20mm range up to I think a 135mm lens, but my favourite was either the 35mm or 50mm lenses. Due to the way that the sensors work on the new camera this 24mm lens works out to be the same rough field of view as a 35mm lens, and that one when bought new would work out to be “worth” around 650$ CAD when you factor in inflation from the 1970’s when it was made up until todays date.
The 24mm I just picked up? That cost under 300$ CAD before tax.
The older lens is all metal, but the quality of the manufacturing of glass between the 1970’s and now means that this new lens is light enough that a metal mount isn’t required, and the reduction in weight makes this thing disappear on the front of the camera.
At the end of the day would the 1300$ NIKKOR Z 24mm f/1.8 S produce a “better” image? Sure, is it worth spending another 1000$ on the lens for something that’s effectively a hobby for me that I don’t make any money off off?
Yea, no. I’m good with the cheap fun thanks.
Hopefully the 40mm F/2 I just picked up is at least this good.