I will probably continue posting on the 50-135 thread, but decided to start a new thread on this one. So I finally got the lens and was able to play a bit more with it. Inevitably as a potential full system switcher, I have to compare from a 4/3rds perspective.
Initial thoughts: mixed bag. Some things I am like "wow, nice" and some things have left me a bit more "Hmmm. ok." But I decided I needed to play with it more because the DOF is so narrow, it's easy to mistake bad focus for bad sharpness or bad lens.
2nd thoughts after playing with it some more: better than my initial impression, part of this is getting to know how this works. I have seen the lens can be sharp enough wide open. I did see pincushion at the telephoto end.
Compared to my Olympus 50-200- is it better? I would say *probably* yes, but not much better.
Compared to the Olympus 35-100 is it very close to it? No, it isn't. It's closer to the 50-200 in that regard. But then the 35-100 costs more than twice as much (USA). It also puts some things in perspective as I will comment a bit further. That said, I would like to see some crops of the 35-100 at F2.0 because I have read in a few places it's not tack sharp at F2.0 (but that's in a way expected to some extent, just reassures me perspective wise I can't expect tack sharp on this lens either at F2.8). I saw a review in fact that described the 35-100 as rather a bit soft wide, with real life examples, but I am going to like to see more since maybe he had a bad copy or was having the back focus issue.
Focusing- focusing is not super fast (using Olympus 12-60 as a reference, for example) but I wouldn't say worse than my 50-200. Now, that's partially because of the K-5 body. Would like to see the 50-200 on an E-5.
I had to AF adjust my lens, was it was back focusing a bit out of the box. After I did that it improved quite a bit wide open. I see that AF is still tricky at full tele with moving/lower light subjects but then that's true for pretty much any system. My 620 + 50-200 can't quite handle the same level of lower light, but that's expected of an e-620.
Tonality- I see the lens has it and it's there. That certain "pop" in contrast and color.
Bokeh- circular aperture is nice. However as it goes from details to the blur, I notice some rather "not so smooth steps" in between. I find my 50-200 does better here. But I am going to continue checking a few things since I was using my Pentax without the lens hood, that may affect some things, and I regularly use my 50-200 with lens hood.
A few pictures from a place in San Francisco called Blue Bottle (I guess it's elsewhere) Coffee, which I asked if they would mind me testing the lens and they were all fine with it.
Note: there's a few shots in here that won't seem tack sharp, and that's because yes, they are not. I wasn't quite watching my shutter speed, and I forgot I needed a faster shutter speed. And these guys were all sporadically moving. You can see the shots where at ISO 800/1600 and F2.8/F4.0:
In this shot focus is on the nose:
This one was cropped a little:
I really like the tonality. And this is ISO 1600(!)
A little bluer/colder:
Very neutral face, looks like a statue to me - a bit
This guy was moving a a bit blurry. Did a sharpening with a wider radius:
The focal length of all these shots were 135 (202mm, Pentax says it's 207mm).
- Raist
Initial thoughts: mixed bag. Some things I am like "wow, nice" and some things have left me a bit more "Hmmm. ok." But I decided I needed to play with it more because the DOF is so narrow, it's easy to mistake bad focus for bad sharpness or bad lens.
2nd thoughts after playing with it some more: better than my initial impression, part of this is getting to know how this works. I have seen the lens can be sharp enough wide open. I did see pincushion at the telephoto end.
Compared to my Olympus 50-200- is it better? I would say *probably* yes, but not much better.
Compared to the Olympus 35-100 is it very close to it? No, it isn't. It's closer to the 50-200 in that regard. But then the 35-100 costs more than twice as much (USA). It also puts some things in perspective as I will comment a bit further. That said, I would like to see some crops of the 35-100 at F2.0 because I have read in a few places it's not tack sharp at F2.0 (but that's in a way expected to some extent, just reassures me perspective wise I can't expect tack sharp on this lens either at F2.8). I saw a review in fact that described the 35-100 as rather a bit soft wide, with real life examples, but I am going to like to see more since maybe he had a bad copy or was having the back focus issue.
Focusing- focusing is not super fast (using Olympus 12-60 as a reference, for example) but I wouldn't say worse than my 50-200. Now, that's partially because of the K-5 body. Would like to see the 50-200 on an E-5.
I had to AF adjust my lens, was it was back focusing a bit out of the box. After I did that it improved quite a bit wide open. I see that AF is still tricky at full tele with moving/lower light subjects but then that's true for pretty much any system. My 620 + 50-200 can't quite handle the same level of lower light, but that's expected of an e-620.
Tonality- I see the lens has it and it's there. That certain "pop" in contrast and color.
Bokeh- circular aperture is nice. However as it goes from details to the blur, I notice some rather "not so smooth steps" in between. I find my 50-200 does better here. But I am going to continue checking a few things since I was using my Pentax without the lens hood, that may affect some things, and I regularly use my 50-200 with lens hood.
A few pictures from a place in San Francisco called Blue Bottle (I guess it's elsewhere) Coffee, which I asked if they would mind me testing the lens and they were all fine with it.
Note: there's a few shots in here that won't seem tack sharp, and that's because yes, they are not. I wasn't quite watching my shutter speed, and I forgot I needed a faster shutter speed. And these guys were all sporadically moving. You can see the shots where at ISO 800/1600 and F2.8/F4.0:
In this shot focus is on the nose:
This one was cropped a little:
I really like the tonality. And this is ISO 1600(!)
A little bluer/colder:
Very neutral face, looks like a statue to me - a bit
This guy was moving a a bit blurry. Did a sharpening with a wider radius:
The focal length of all these shots were 135 (202mm, Pentax says it's 207mm).
- Raist