A star is born, or may be it was rather one that escaped?
I succumbed to the bombarment of B&H emails last week - the extra star was the creation of the initial testing of the freebee filter that came with the lens that arrived yesterday. Having newly gotten into the Z system, I guess this purchase was an inevitable development... In the past months I was evaluating and on the lookout for the two normal zoom alternatives. Still undecided and noticing that the 24-120mm was not receiving standalone discounts and anyway being out of stock everywhere, I re-examined my lens use. The heavily discounted 50mm f/1.8 S was my first temptation, but I have not had the greatest use of standard 50mm lenses in the past - the 55mm macro lenses in the same range have been dominating for general use, even as early as the film days. The experience during summer travel was that with the 14-30mm as my "standard" lens I was quite happy with complementing that with my 105mm f/2.5 AIS on my Z8. The excellent 30mm end of the former could also be stretched a little to a narrower angle of view by cropping if needed. I only occasionally mounted my 55 micro.
Although the micro 105 MC was tempting, it is too big for my everyday carry, so I went for the 85mm f/1.8 S that interestingly was not initially on my radar at all and is my first 85mm lens. Also interesting is that in my early DX days I used 20mm in combination with the 55mm f/3.5, so almost the same angle of view on the DX sensors. When using the zoom on my AW1, I am usually either at the wide or long end approximating the same views.
85mm f/1.8 S at f/1.8 on Z8, handheld 1/40 sec, ISO 1250:
