The New Lens Reviews Section is here!

**Adam** · 01-07-2007, 01:36 AM

Hi everyone,

After hours of work (and equally many hours adding lenses into the database), I've finally finished the new user lens reviewing system

It is intended to provide users with facts as well as others' opinions about every Pentax lens ever produced. Please have a look here: http://www.pentaxforums.com/lensreviews/index.php

When viewing any lens, click "post a review" on the main info table to post any comments as well as:

Price
Rating (out of 10)
Recommendation (yes/no)

As you can see, not all screwmount or 67 lenses are listed yet- I'll be adding these tomorrow. I'll also take care of linking to the new section from the forum, as well as vBSEO integration and other minor backend tweaks.

Thanks for looking, and I hope to see this grow into a highly useful resource. Enjoy!

P.S. I'm still looking for photos of most of the lenses. If you own a lens and would like to "donate" a photo, please PM me.

Note that the database only includes lenses with "Pentax" or "Takumar" in their names.

Jonas B · 01-07-2007, 03:45 AM

The rating... is it just one single number?

That gives me some problems rating lenses: Thinking of a any lens it might be excellent optically, be of bad built, give a lot of bang for the money but be cumbersome to use. What about a lens with great charactersistics for portraits but being flary and bad at long distances?
Maybe one can cover that with the comments but at the same time it makes the rating figure less valuable. I have seen these ratings at other places like photodo and it really isn't that useful. Clicking radio buttons for opinions is conveniant but I think anoter system with several options would be better - especially thinking of all the effort being put into this.

What about popular third party lenses? The Zenitar, Jupiter-9, Tokina 80-400, Sigma 18-125, Sigma 30/1.4 some Tamron short zoom and others?

Just comments, I guess you allready have thought about all this.

It's a great idea to have a lot of small lens reviews at one place!

regards,

-=JoN=- · 01-07-2007, 10:27 AM

good stuff mo....

**Adam** · 01-07-2007, 11:35 AM

Originally Posted by Jonas B

The rating... is it just one single number?

That gives me some problems rating lenses: Thinking of a any lens it might be excellent optically, be of bad built, give a lot of bang for the money but be cumbersome to use. What about a lens with great charactersistics for portraits but being flary and bad at long distances?
Maybe one can cover that with the comments but at the same time it makes the rating figure less valuable. I have seen these ratings at other places like photodo and it really isn't that useful. Clicking radio buttons for opinions is conveniant but I think anoter system with several options would be better - especially thinking of all the effort being put into this.

What about popular third party lenses? The Zenitar, Jupiter-9, Tokina 80-400, Sigma 18-125, Sigma 30/1.4 some Tamron short zoom and others?

Just comments, I guess you allready have thought about all this.

It's a great idea to have a lot of small lens reviews at one place!

regards,

Thanks for the feedback. Unfortunately, I can't modify anything else without having the entire system go into shambles. The rating is just an overall figure, and I believe that it can accurately depict the quality of the lens, combined with the average price and recommendation fields. Comments won't go unseen, either, and they'll say more about the lens than just the numbers above.

I'm leaving 3rd party lenses out of this (for now), but I may add a section for them in the future. It's either all or nothing

Buschmaster · 01-07-2007, 02:20 PM

Originally Posted by Mo

Thanks for the feedback. Unfortunately, I can't modify anything else without having the entire system go into shambles. The rating is just an overall figure, and I believe that it can accurately depict the quality of the lens, combined with the average price and recommendation fields. Comments won't go unseen, either, and they'll say more about the lens than just the numbers above.

I'm leaving 3rd party lenses out of this (for now), but I may add a section for them in the future. It's either all or nothing

I as well would like to see 3rd party lenses, but I can understand not wanting to do that as it is a lot of work for you and everything.

But hey, you're awesome for adding this, this is so helpful for everyone!

SpecialK · 01-07-2007, 03:50 PM

I assume the reviews in the lens discussions will be transferred to this new database? (I did the 10-17mm, and 50-200mm Pentax). And, the Sigma-for- Pentax reviews will stay in that older "Pentax equipment" thread?

**Adam** · 01-07-2007, 07:53 PM

The threads will stay as they are, and a few reviews have already been transferred. Since the review system is not intended for discussion, a few occasional new threads on the forum won't hurt

carpents · 01-08-2007, 07:09 AM

Hey, Adam.

I don't see a place to enter the price for the lens.

Also, it might be misleading to lump the Takumar, Auto-Takumar, Super-Takumar, and Super-Multi-Coated Takumar lenses all together. I know for certain that there were significant improvements in between versions of many Takumar lenses, including a totally different optical design as well as improved coatings. So, if I go in and give a '5' to my Super-Takumar 50/1.4 but give a '9' to my SMC Takumar 50/1.4 under the same heading it isn't an accurate average for either lens!

--Sean

**Adam** · 01-08-2007, 08:32 AM

You do have a point there- I'll consider splitting them up, but that would really be a multitude of lenses.

If you'd like to help me on descriptions of all the different varieties, I'll try to take care of things as soon as possible.

And here's the price field:

carpents · 01-08-2007, 09:19 AM

Originally Posted by Mo

And here's the price field:

Aha! The price doesn't show up in the 'Quick Reply', only in the full reply.

That explains it.

**Adam** · 01-08-2007, 12:34 PM

That's strange- I'll add it right now

-=JoN=- · 01-08-2007, 05:02 PM

aw, u took out the review section all together....?!

**Adam** · 01-08-2007, 05:21 PM

I've temporarily taken out the quick review system since the price field is missing, but you can still review lenses using the advanced editor.

The quick reviews will be back once I've manually added the price field

-=JoN=- · 01-08-2007, 05:26 PM

I was gonna put up the grip....just wrapping it up now...will wait till you put it back online I guess...

**Adam** · 01-08-2007, 05:40 PM

Why wait? It's practically the same interface. Just click "post a review" when viewing a lens