I want to comment on these bits from the review:
The new DA lenses are expensive and this caused me to pause, until I realised they were no more expensive than the Hasselblad and Phase One offerings and just as good. I also noted, with an uncomfortable shuffle of my bottom, that they are priced the same as average Leica optics and not as expensive as Leica’s fastest lenses. The problem here is that there are not very many of them and nothing over 90mm (75mm in FF terms)! I also did not want to jump in with both feet and pony up the money for a full set of their newest optics, so acknowledged that legacy lenses would have to feature.
The DA lenses are actually significantly less expensive than Phase and Hasselblad variants, the 28-45 doesn't have a direct equivalent in the other systems, but their wide zooms are roughly $8000 a piece, namely the Phase 40-80mm and Hasselblad 35-90mm. Except the 28-45 is even better because it's a constant aperture zoom and is stabilized, at the cost of a lack of central shutter. Additionally, the HCD 120mm macro is $5,500 vs the $4,500 for the Pentax 90 macro, and the Phase/Mamiya macro is priced somewhere between the two. (note that I'm going by B&H new prices, often you can get many of these lenses for less, the 90mm macro is like $3,300 or less direct from Japan)
As for the "average Leica lens price" quote, I actually recently added together and divided the price of every lens in the S system, and ended up a few dollars short of $7000... the Pentax glass is nowhere near that; very few systems are.
SMC Pentax DFA 645 55mm f2.8 AL (IF) SDM AW: Nice and compact, very sharp on centre, but with that darned field curvature issue at the edges and corners plaguing subjects at long distance. I saw some samples that made me think ‘you are better off with 35mm cameras by a mile’. Frankly, this lens stinks at infinity at the edges, unless stopped down to f11 or more at which point it is no better than ‘OK’. Closer in it looks amazing, but I am not aiming to shoot portraits. I also noted that lots of people sent copies back due to edge performance only to find their replacements were the same i.e. it was by design. Quality control seemed fine. 450g.
I must have gotten an amazing copy myself, because I have nothing but praise for this lens. I did shoot a test chart when I first got it, and it's corners
are somewhat soft in the extreme edges, but looking back over my images, there is almost no situation where I could complain about corner quality.
Here's an image I shot hand-held at f/9 and a crop of the top-left corner:
...Moire on the AC block is better than "ok" in my book!
120mm Macro (A and FA): 9 (10) 10
Brilliant. Everyone says the same thing: ‘one of the best lenses I have ever used regardless of label’. Eyeball slicing on the 645Z and also very good at infinity. I am always of suspicious of this, as most Macro lenses need plenty of stopping down at infinity and perform poorly until f11 or more. Almost no sample variation. All seem great. 650g or so. £200+ (A series). 690g (A) 740g (FA).
I must have gotten my lenses from bizzaro land, as unlike the 55mm, the 120mm is my softest lens, and at infinity @ f/8 the 150mm 2.8 runs circles around it and is sharp edge-to-edge. Sample variation is very much there, and I will almost certainly one day be replacing it with the 90mm 2.8.
The 150mm 2.8 is soft-ish from f/2.8 to f/4, sharpens up at f/5.6 and is razor sharp at f/8~11, this is somewhat convenient as portraits don't end up overly sharp, and for regular distance shots it's incredibly sharp. As with all legacy Pentax lenses, it's plagued by LoCA though...
With that said... start pumping iron and enjoy :salute:
