Pentax-DA 35mm F2.8 Macro Review

Image Quality

The image quality of the DA 35mm Limited provides excellent contrast and sharpness from its minimum focusing distance to infinity. The colors and details captured are colorful and vivid. The captured images are almost lifelike with an intensity that seems to go beyond what the natural eye can capture. The lens seems to enhance the subject regardless of the type of picture; landscapes, people, objects, and even casual shots look better taken with the lens. All tests, in this article, were performed using the Pentax K7 camera.

Sharpness

The lens produces very good center sharpness from f/2.8 and good edge sharpness. The DA 35mm really shines once the lens is stop down to f/5.6 or higher. At f5.6, the center sharpness improves to excellent and the edge sharpness is really nice. Each picture was shot with the camera on a tripod, at ISO 100, with SR turned off and the mirror lock-up activated. The shutter was triggered with a remote.

Bokeh

The DA 35mm produces excellent bokeh within the macro range, which is anything less than two feet. The depth-of-field is directly related to magnification. At the beginning of the macro range the depth-of-field is approximately four inches, while at 1-to-1 it is less than a quarter of an inch. Beyond the macro range the bokeh tends to be acceptable, but at times can be very distracting. The pictures below are some examples of this particular bokeh (both images are shot at f2.8).

Distortion

The lens produces negligible barrel distortion, in both normal and macro use. In the shots I took, I could not detect any barrel distortion. I am sure that some barrel distortion may exist, but if it does, it exceeds my testing methods.

Chromatic Aberrations

Chromatic aberrations are also negligible, in both normal and macro usage. Once again, of the shots I took with the DA 35mm, I could not detect any chromatic aberrations. However, I am sure they could occur given the right situation.