[nirVaan]

hi guys,

well the DA limited are not as fast as the many other prime lenses.Is this a real disadvantage.what kind of low light situations that you would find the f2.8 being not fast enough , if the lenses were coupled with lets say a K5.

[luftfluss]

Too subjective of a question... People have different tolerances for things like image noise, and also the ability to hold a camera steady. Image noise doesn't bug me much as long as the photo is sharp. I do think there might be an inherent low-light advantage to the pancake Ltds, in that it may be easier to hold them steady than with a much larger prime.

[RonHendriks1966]

I guess that apertures between f1.2 and f2.5 are more for the image and bokeh then they are used for the sake of not having enough light.

[Adam]

Limited lenses are designed to be small, not necessarily fast- if you want more speed, opt for * lenses

Adam
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[Anvh]

The T-number is often very good with the limited lenses, i believe the DA40 is even one of the best out there.
So in terms of light gathering they are simply good.

[Jonathan Mac]

Speed is not the speciality of the DA ltds. The FA ltds are significantly faster, and it's a shame that Pentax opted to do away with that part of the lts philosphy for the DA lenses. However, they are all usable wide open. I only have the DA 35, but it's extremely sharp even wide open.

To answer the question, I rarely find that f/2.8 is not fast enough for my kind of shooting. For a start, the AF of my K200D struggles with anything fast. Secondly, for indoor low-light shooting, bounced flash produces far better results than a fast lens wide open. This is especially true of older cameras like mine, but even on a K5, using ISO 100 will produce better results than ISO 3200. For indoor shooting I almost always use flash. If I didn't, f/2.8 would not be fast enough to produce good results as I'd need to crank up the ISO more than I'd like.

[creampuff]

Here's a shot taken some almost 4 years ago with the K20D and DA21mm f/3.2 Limited (1/20 sec at f/3.5, ISO 800) taken handheld with AF. With my current K-5 which is definitely a lot better, I have not had issues shooting at low light levels, if anything the sensor's awesome dynamic range and high ISO performance make things even easier than earlier cameras. Work on your technique, shoot in RAW, know your gear well and low light shooting isn't such a challenge. And yes, it can be done even with the DA Limiteds.

[westmill]

Since DOF is so shallow at very wide apratures, most people buy realy fast lenses to create huge amounts of bokeh rather than any low light advantages.
The majority of the really fast lenses are genraly ok in the centre of the frame but perform badly at the edges. This is often a none issue for portraits since
the intent is for an out of focus creamy background anyway. Despite all this, a fast lens will carry on allowing take pics that bit longer as the sun goes down
even if the quality may not be great.

[abacus07]

I want the FA43/50 less for low light but more for OOF background. This was a small crop but I would have liked to have been 1+ stops faster on this shot. The nice thing is that they are super sharp wide open.

[sterretje]

Sorry to promote my own thread but all were taken with f/2.8 or narrower apertures on a K5: https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/post-your-photos/163422-people-toyota-jac...mb-photos.html First one with flash, others without.

Just in case the link does not get parsed: 2MB photos in total

All jpegs direct from the camera except the first one where I had to apply red-eye reduction. Last one ISO12800.

[paperbag846]

Sometimes it is nice having f1.4, but often, I pay a large IQ price (40 has much nicer flare resistance, colour, contrast, AF...). I used to have the DA 40 and I might sell my 50 1.4 for the 40 once I upgrade to a camera with a better sensor. The fact of the matter is I rarely use the 50 below f2.8 for anything other than soft portraits or ultra-low light (and the results are almost never print worthy). In addition, the 40 has a much easier to use FOV when you don't have control of the situation...