So it's been a week I've had the opportunity to use my newest toy.
I wasn't sure what to think of it before purchase. I've seen some terrific pictures but some horrific too. Some say it's a gold, some say it's worse than Tamron 28-75/2.8 and you have to pay much more for it. All a agree it's a brick of a lens.
I figured with 7 weeks to pay my credit card, I'd have enough time to decide on this one...
First of all, it came in touch worse condition than I expected given the rating but the price was right. But I won't name the shop I bought it from as until now my experience with them has been 100% and after this it stands at 99%. I don't have hood and availability of the original is 0 (please don't post links to ebay sellers selling original hoods for £130 or so LoL) and the only hood that fits is PH-RBK77 (DA*200/300) which is out of stock just about anywhere in UK and when owner of one shop with direct links to Pentax UK called to see if he could order one for me he was told it'll take 3-4 weeks... we'll see as I'm determined to get some hood for this
Anyway, enough of chit chat.
Physically very impressive lens. Very well put together with only limited wobble on inner barrel, and some little play in zoom ring. Finish is nice but as with other FA*s easy to scratch.
Opics?
Well, some would have you believe it's unusable wide open, especially above 50/60mm,
I think, at 28mm this lens is nothing short of superb even wide open. Sharp across the frame. It easily gives run for money to FA*24 for sharpness from f4 and doesn't lag too much at f2.8. It's contrast levels and colour rendering is VERY similar to the FA*24. Simply great IMO. All this holds true up to 60mm. Pass this, the lens softens up a bit but still remains perfectly usable, even though vignetting gets heavier. Biggest problem is AF which gets quite unreliable on longer focal lengths and 70/2.8 with MFD of 45cm is not very forgiving. Having said that, so far I'm happy with it...very happy.
Power zoom is rather nice feature. Auto retract is great, and the PZ is much faster than me zooming the lens. And as icing on the cake the lens performs AF while doing PZ too! Great!
enough talking here is few shots
Sorry for the subjects, I haven't had chance to take this one on any proper photo walk yet.
28mm @2.8 ISO500 K-7
and 100% crop:
35mm @2.8 ISO500 K-7
70mm @2.8 ISO800 (pushed +1ev in PP) K-7
and 100% crop:
and few casual shots:
Regards
P