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How to use the Pentax 100 macro WR without going crazy

jonoslack

Active member
Hmm
Well, me and Armanius don't like going to the dentist, and having the quietest dSLR there is, and then attaching something to it which focuses back and forth sounding like a dentist drill is not amusing.

The culprit is the Pentax 100 macro WR with it's screwdriver motor. Mine was up for sale, but obviously the rest of the world has heard about this problem, so nobody offered to buy it.

Having re-evaluated the Zeiss 50 f1.4, I thought I'd try a bit of lateral thinking with the 100 WR.

First of all I set it to manual focus - fine, it's perfectly easy to focus manually, but unfortunately the AF button no longer activates AF.

So then I tried putting it back on AF, but doing the first bit of focusing manually, then a half press of the shutter completes the job - no hunting back and forth, just a teeny zzt and it's in focus!

Phew . . . so that's not for sale now either . . . It's possible that the Zeiss 100 f2 macro is better - but it's exactly half the weight, about a third of the price, and it does have AF (kindof).

all the best
 

emr

Member
I agree the lens can be annoyingly slow and loud while focusing. I think that's what most users tend to do, use the quick shift MF
in addition to the AF. The quick shift is a pretty nice feature. Although for some reason on my WR lens the quick shift gets stuck sometimes so that turning the MF ring while the finger's off the shutter button, one can feel the AF mechanism resisting. Some Pentax users say that happens every now and then with all their QS lenses, while some say they have never experienced it. Go figure. I have never noticed it with other lenses, but then again, I don't use QS that much with other ones.

But I'm glad you found a way to use yours, since that's probably close to the best lens that I own. Most likely not in the Leica/Zeiss league, but great anyhow.
 

Armanius

New member
C'mon Jono ... now you are making me feel bad I returned the lens! Particularly now that the price has increased by $20 since I returned it. So if I buy it again, I'll have to pay extra. :)

All kidding aside, the FA100 makes a nice short telephoto lens, and you can get some crazy bokeh with it.

I found it frustrating to do macro work, even using MF. Maybe it was a combination of unsteady hands, close working distance, the long focal length, and a very thin DOF. Oh yeah, and my lack of experience doing macros too (gotta give credit to myself).

I can't say enough about the build of the FA100 -- awesome!! IMO, its build is better than the two Ltd's that I've tried (DA21 and FA43). Arguably, Leica like build, but with WR!
 
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