[Guest]

Actually Sony makes a camera that meets your specs exactly.

I mean Alpha 290.

~500 grams including battery; decent optical viewfinder (0.83x magnification as opposed to usual in its class 0.8x); 14 Mpixel CCD that is remarkably good on low ISO.

So good that when it first appeared in Alpha 350, Sony-based pro-s asked for Alpha 700 replacement with this sensor - no less. Then, when the A500/A550/A450 series arrived, their low-ISO quality was reported to be still inferior to the A350.

If you insist on having a CMOS, there's A450 with the same 0.83x viewfinder.

For the lens, the 16-80 is unbeatable.



Hope this helps,

Oleg.

[Guest]

[quote name='wojtt' timestamp='1295968989' post='5754']

I'm facing a similar dilemma myself and I just can't make my mind whether to take the 16-85 or the 16-35 f4 (ruggedness and more weight versus better range and slower speed). Time to toss a coin ? <img src='http://forum.photozone.de/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />

[/quote]

The 16-85 is actually faster at the wide end. And it will probably not be significantly slower than f4 at its 35mm setting.

[Guest]

n/a