[victormeldrew]

It's on special order, so it will be a while before I receive it, but I'm excited to try it.
I've got a fortnight to try it before I can return it if I don't get on with it, so I'll need to put it through its paces.
I'm particularly looking forward to trying it out on some macro, particularly in BW. I know it's a bit of a novelty lens, but I love the effects it can pull off.
Anybody have any experience with it? Any hints and tips to share?

[BigMackCam]

I tried one at a show back in March last year... Very nice indeed. Well-built, nicely-finished, and I love the softness at wider apertures

[Fenwoodian]

I owned one last year.

Sold it after just a couple of months. Not my style. But, it certainly might support your style of photography.

[victormeldrew]

It has arrived! I'll use it for a month or so before posting a review, but my first impressions:

The good:
- Nice packaging
- Feels solid and well built
- Nicely damped large focusing ring
- Easy, smooth aperture ring with just enough click to identify the stops

The bad:
- Frankly, very expensive for a basic full-manual novelty lens. Similar in price to my Tamron 28-75, which is much 'more lens'.
- The mount feels slightly cheap. Perhaps Pentax was a bit of an afterthought.
- Not really the fault of the lens given its design, but focusing is a tough job, especially at fast apertures where nothing is really in focus. Focus Peaking is useless at any wider than f4 and viewfinder focus confirmation either fails to confirm, or gives random confirmations. You need to use your eyes, basically...I've been tempted with a split prism focusing screen for a while, this might be the final nail in the decision.

[victormeldrew]

Here is a quick low-res sample from my garden, straight from the camera with only exposure correction. Semi-Macro shot at f/4 1/125 ISO200 under leaden skies.
I have to say, the colours are lovely, even under poor light. I love the quality of the softness, which really works for my intended purpose.

[victormeldrew]

To give a comparison here is a shot in similar conditions at f/1.6 showing the intense softness you get. The flat light doesn't really do the lens justice, which works best with soft directional light, but it shows the difficulty in obtaining any kind of focus. This shot would look lovely in B&W though.

[BruceBanner]

I wonder if you still have it? I picked one up yesterday and had a quick play with it, I utterly love it from a first impressions point of view, especially at F4-8.

What I would say is this is quite a technical lens, and I think it requires quite advanced post processing skills to also derive the most from it. For example, my intended purposes I will do layering and stacking. I will tripod up and shoot at f4-8 and then also take some additional frames at f1.6-2.8, and then get to masking, keeping things sharp where I want it and work that gorgeous smooth bokeh in other parts of the frame.

For portrait and single frame shots I doubt I'll ever use anything lower than F4, more like f5.6-8, but at those apertures it renders completely different to any other lens I have, it still gives a wonderful bokeh swirl and pop to the image.

For focusing help I have a Tenpa 1.22 and I just use my eye and take off all screen confirmation/guidelines. I would also suggest focusing at f5.6 and then dial back the aperture, green button or if in Av mode just then take the shot. Trying to get focus at f1.6-2.8 is not really gonna be reliable. Focus more stopped down then dial back quickly would be my top tip.