Pentax lenses

16-50

Just did the "brickwall-thing" and it seems the 16-50 at f2.8 on the is ok (usable but slightly soft), but at f4.0 sharpens up quite a bit.
So I would probably try to shoot it af f4.0, and only go to f2.8 when needed for low light etc.
Overall looks like a nice lens at all focal length. Also the corners look good for my taste.

15, 31,77 limited and the newer 100 macroWR will be my kit.
My eyes are blurry from reading so many reviews and looking at so many pics over the last couple of weeks, but that is what i have decided on. Jono made it very hard with the snaps of the 35macro, but in the end the 31 won out.
Joe

ecsh said:

15, 31,77 limited and the newer 100 macroWR will be my kit.
My eyes are blurry from reading so many reviews and looking at so many pics over the last couple of weeks, but that is what i have decided on. Jono made it very hard with the snaps of the 35macro, but in the end the 31 won out.
Joe

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Hi Joe
don't give me a second thought - I haven't tried out those other lenses anyway, so I have no proper comparison.

I'm not planning on a big haul of limited lenses myself anyway - I have the M9 for that - I'm enjoying my 35, and the 50 Zeiss, but I suspect the 16-50 Pentax is going to get the most use . . and now I'm dithering about the 60-250 f4
aaaaahhhhh!

60-250, wow. Talk about a range. I got the 15 yesterday, and its a little jewel. These little primes are what attracted me to this system, along with your post. The body with the 77 arrives tomorrow, so it should prove to be a fun Thursday around here with good closeups of the turkey, LOL.
Joe

35mm on Pentax DSLRs is a normal lens, equivalent to 50mm on your D700. I would only buy that for portraiture if you like a normal lens for portraiture. The new DA35 LImited is an excellent performer, but I'd find it a little short.

The FA43 and FA77 are two of the best lenses in the focal length made. The DA70 is very good too, and smaller/lighter ... has the QuickShift focusing ring so you can manual focus adjust it when AF is engaged. The 43 and 77 are older designs: you need to disengage AF on the body to allow manual focusing.

My ideal Pentax lens kit now would be 15mm, 21mm, 43mm, 70 or 77mm and the 50-135.

Used primarily the 31 and the 15 during my tour with Pentax. The 31 is really a fantastic lens and would be my primary if I went back to Pentax; lovely rendering and for me a very useful FOV. The 15 is also good, not as sharp maybe as the 31 but very nice robust color and very little flare. I also tried a few zooms and they were fine but nothing memorable. Have heard the 77 is great. Would be nice to have a weathersealed normal FOV prime to skip the zooms altogether.

I've owned the DA40, and sold it after buying the 43. Now I wish I'd just stayed with the DA40. Not that the 43 is not an excellent lens - it is every bit as good as the hype suggests. However the DA40 is also truly excellent in all normal use, and you have to really split hairs to separate them.

My lineup now includes the 15 (recent arrival), 21, 31, 43 and 77. I haven't tried the 70.

Another lens to consider is the older Pentax-F 28/2.8 autofocus lens. This was a sleeper until recently "discovered" by the forums and values have risen. Very good IQ, very fast to focus, and much smaller and lighter then the 31.

DA vs FA

I have been debating with myself of FA (43/77) vs DA(40/70).
Right now I feel the DA will be fine for me. Except maybe the 43 where I would prefer the faster f-stop-dont know yet.
Other than that smaller size, focus override, slightly faster focus, eventually even slightly better corners? (dont know). Also I find the FA to be quite expensive to be frank.
What I would like about the FAs is the slightly warmer color rendering (from what I read and see- no own experience so far), and the faster f-stop.

If anybody has too much timeI hope its ok to post a link here): www.pentaxforums.com/forums/pentax-slr-lens-discussion/74194-da-limited-club.html - I browsed through the first 20 pages and there are many great images for my taste. Nice rendition, strong color, nice bokeh.

In a few days I can say more and also add some own experience.

jonoslack said:

Hi Joe
don't give me a second thought - I haven't tried out those other lenses anyway, so I have no proper comparison.

I'm not planning on a big haul of limited lenses myself anyway - I have the M9 for that - I'm enjoying my 35, and the 50 Zeiss, but I suspect the 16-50 Pentax is going to get the most use . . and now I'm dithering about the 60-250 f4
aaaaahhhhh!

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I was wondering about the 60-250/4.0 vs 50-135/2.8.
Personally I tend towards the 50-135 because its much lighter (600g vs over 1000g), and its f2.8.
But it probably depends if one plans to use it more for birding, wildlife etc (longer reach needed) or for sports, family, action travel -> faster lens and smaller size, less reach needed)

For my Nikon I have the 70200VRII which works excellent with converters even wide open. But for my use I realized I dont use the externders often.

t_streng said:

I was wondering about the 60-250/4.0 vs 50-135/2.8.
Personally I tend towards the 50-135 because its much lighter (600g vs over 1000g), and its f2.8.
But it probably depends if one plans to use it more for birding, wildlife etc (longer reach needed) or for sports, family, action travel -> faster lens and smaller size, less reach needed)

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Actually (according to the Pentax website)
60-250 = 1040
50-135 = 765

Photozone seemed to like the 60-250 better; it's pretty good right the way through the range, but the 50-135 doesn't seem that good at 135 . . .

for me it's so reminiscent of my old perfect kit (E1/E3 12-60 50-200), but with the advantages of much better resolution and higher ISO.

. . . . and the ISO is also relevant here - I went to try the 60-250 in the store, and was shooting at f9 1/200th at ISO 6400, and the combination of the IS and high ISO was giving perfectly acceptable results. What I'm getting at is that the ability to shoot at much higher ISO makes the stop difference less relevant.

Assuming the quality is about the same, then you're getting twice the range for an extra 300gms - not drastic I think.

t_streng said:

For my Nikon I have the 70200VRII which works excellent with converters even wide open. But for my use I realized I dont use the externders often.

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That's what I found with mine - and I used the much less good 80-400 much more often as a result . . . . . which was really the final push toward getting the 60-250.

I can fit the K5 with 16-50, the 60-250 the 35 macro and the 50 f1.4 together with an ipad into my little fogg b-sharp bag, which is for now a 'finished' kit.:bugeyes::ROTFL:

I liked the 50-135 far more than the 60-250 for two reasons:

- The 50-135 is a fixed length lens with no tromboning as you zoom or focus. It is better made and will stay in alignment a lot longer as a result.

- The extra stop of speed is particularly useful with a longer lens.

I so rarely want or need much longer than a 135 on 16x24mm format, longer focal length zooms are simply not all that interesting. If I wanted longer than the 50-135, I'd want one of the DA*200/4 lenses.

The image quality of the 50-135 is excellent. Ignore silly lens tests ... I made a lot of photos with it at 135mm and NONE were poor on technical quality.

Regards the 31mm Limited ... I owned and use all the Pentax Limiteds up until when I stopped using Pentax equipment in early 2009. This lens was particularly expensive ... over $900 ... and I have to say it was my least favorite lens of the Limiteds:

- It's heavy and large for a 35mm.
- The fixed, non-removable lens hood is designed for 35mm Film format, not the DSLR format, and makes fitting a deeper hood for the DSLRs difficult.
- The fixed hood also means you need a special lens cap, which costs over $60 if you lose it. And*it makes using polarizer filters a pain.
- I found it flared quite a lot in night shooting if any slightly out of the frame street lights were on.

I sold it, bought the FA35/2 AL for a third the money. It was lighter, smaller, didn't have the stupid fixed hood, returned only slightly less superb bokeh at f/2 (and almost identical at f/2.8). The new 35/2.8 macro Limited is even better.

Yeah, the FA31 irritated me a lot. ;-)

Godfrey
Thats good to know. I may have to rethink my 31 obsession. I did like what i was seeing from the 35 macro, so maybe this is my way. In any case, once the body gets here, i can decide later.
Joe

Today I shot some comparisons between the 16-50 and 15,21 and 35 macro.

1) the 15 shows quite a bit vignetting at f4.0, much more than the zoom at 16mm. I have to do further testing but it also like the corners dont look that great compared to the zoom
Overall it seeems the least best of those limited - also with f4.0 the slowest

2) both the 21 and 35 convince fully compared to the 16-50. The zoom did fine at but the limiteds are somwhat sharper at f3.2, specially in the corners, and show an overall slightly "clearer" image. The K5 exp metering exposed images with the limited lower/darker. dont know why.
The Primes also showed less CA (The zoom did finebut the primes did a little better)

3) I also found out that my 16-50 seems to have a very slight problem at the wide right site with a slight softness; not a big deal but also not 100% perfect IMO

Conclusion for now: Right now I tend to bring the zoom back and go with primes. The 21 and 35 so far convince me, the 15 I have to do further test but it looks like its not totally up to my expectations (slow, vignetting, soft corners and side)

These limited lenses are really nice and small; I like the feel and look. I wonder if this one 15 is not so great or if the 15s are overall not that great.

Godfrey said:

I liked the 50-135 far more than the 60-250 for two reasons:

- The 50-135 is a fixed length lens with no tromboning as you zoom or focus. It is better made and will stay in alignment a lot longer as a result.

- The extra stop of speed is particularly useful with a longer lens.

I so rarely want or need much longer than a 135 on 16x24mm format, longer focal length zooms are simply not all that interesting. If I wanted longer than the 50-135, I'd want one of the DA*200/4 lenses.

The image quality of the 50-135 is excellent. Ignore silly lens tests ... I made a lot of photos with it at 135mm and NONE were poor on technical quality.

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Well, I don't think the tests said that it was poor at 135mm, just that it was less than stellar (unlike the 60-250).
Interestingly, the 200mm figures for the 60-250 are as good as those for the 200 DA f2/8 (nobody seems to have tested the f4 ).

I quite agree about the fixed length lens, tromboning is most un-esthetic, but I don't think it has a huge effect in real life.

The extra stop is always nice - but much less of an issue when you have really useable high ISO

But from a little experience (and lots of reading) the 60-250 seems to be a great lens (the tripod mount is great too), and together with the 16-50 it makes a compact kit with a 24-387 focal length range - not bad.

So, for a little tromboning, a missing stop and an extra 300 gms you get almost double the focal length range without much of a downside, certainly not optically.

Carrying both the 50-135 and the 200 f2.8 is a big hoick in weight, and still doesn't give you the range, or any very obvious optical benefit.

Horses for courses Godfrey!

I agree with you about the 31/35s though.

Everything i read on the 15 seemed to say it was a very good lens. It was supposed to be good at f4, but best at 5.6-8.
Joe

t_streng said:

Today I shot some comparisons between the 16-50 and 15,21 and 35 macro.

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Hi Thomas
Interesting stuff - the little 35 macro really is a stunner isn't it.
I'm okay with my 16-50, I've tested it quite thoroughly and know that it
1. isn't perfect
2. is pretty darned good.

I am quite tempted by the 21 though . . . but I think I should stick where I am for a few weeks now! (I'm also tempted by the 77).

all the best

t_streng said:

Today I shot some comparisons between the 16-50 and 15,21 and 35 macro.

1) the 15 shows quite a bit vignetting at f4.0, much more than the zoom at 16mm. I have to do further testing but it also like the corners dont look that great compared to the zoom
Overall it seeems the least best of those limited - also with f4.0 the slowest ...

Click to expand...

The 15 Limited post-dated my time with Pentax gear so I have no direct experience using it.

I had the DA14mm f/2.8, which is a superb performer. It was good at f/2.8, better at f/4, and plateaued at f/5 holding that with only subtle change to f/11 when diffraction started to degrade the image quality quite a lot. Most of what I shot with it was at around f/5.6-f/8.

The DA12-24/4 is almost as good, great performance for a zoom lens in this range, but I didn't have much time to use it.

I prefer primes over zooms most of the time. Only two exceptions in recent years are the 50-135/2.8 on the Pentax and the 11-22/2.8-3.5 on the Olympus. The latter is stunningly good.

Godfrey said:

I prefer primes over zooms most of the time. Only two exceptions in recent years are the 50-135/2.8 on the Pentax and the 11-22/2.8-3.5 on the Olympus. The latter is stunningly good.

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I like what it takes to get the image - and often that's zooms.
If one were to go for 'ultimate quality' then surely MF is the answer - everything else is a compromise to one degree or another (although an M9 with a summulux 50 at 160 ISO isn't much of a compromise :ROTFL
Once we have smaller sensors with AA filters, then it's a sliding scale of compromises. Zooms are usually good for getting the image.

Which is why I like to travel with a body and a couple of reasonable zooms, better still if they're water resistant.

When you suddenly see a deer nose to nose with a pheasant 100 yards away, you need something reasonably long . . . and you need it on the camera, not in the bag.

Browsing around and reading more about the 15mm -> people write that it needs to be stopped down if you want better corners.
I want to do further testing before deciding if it works for me ore not.
The Nikon 14-24 is a very good lens--but I seldemly bring it because of its size.
I might accept some optical compromises for the size, as long as I feel the IQ works for most of my subjects.

Two more things:
1) One thing I understood after playing around with Sony A55 and K7 + various lenses: I understood how good those Leica M lenses are. I replaced my Leica 24/2.8 some time ago because I thought it was slow with a 24/1.4.
Today I ask myself if a 15/4.0 which needs to be stopped down for consistent IQ works for me.

2) Overall those DA limited lenses feel really good and overall seem to deliver quite good IQ - they feel a bit like a modern version of Leica M lenses to me