Dear Pentax lens buyers,
Many prime lenses are becoming seriously expensive. But will their $500 plus premium guarantee better photos? That’s an important question for people buying Pentax dslrs (which really are excellent), and coming to this forum for advice on what lenses to buy. The reason I’m posting this thread is not to moan about the escalating prices of Pentax primes – prices that some camera buyers would not have expected when they chose Pentax and mapped out their wish-list of new lenses - but to praise today’s budget zooms and budget primes. And to pass on the lessons I’ve learned since switching from Canon to Pentax a few years ago.
Don’t buy the story that excellent expensive primes guarantee excellent photos
I purchased a K20D, a 18-55mm kit lens and a budget Tamron 70-300mm, a good coverage from 18mm to 300mm. Then I started to read this forum, and was persuaded I really
, really needed to buy my first new “prime lens”. To be honest I wasn’t impressed by the quality of photos I was taking (on auto settings) with the budget zooms. A better, faster, smaller lens should make my photos look more professional; give me better images in low light; and the chance to take the kind of photos I’d seen on this forum with artistic bokeh and narrow depth of fields.
My thoughts were directly influenced by members of this forum. Many times the response to questions like “what is the best Pentax prime for a step-up in your photos” seemed to be: “buy a Limited…because if you don’t buy a Limited you’ll end up wanting one anyway so buy it now”. I got the impression that if I didn’t buy a Limited I’d never get the best out of my new Pentax camera. But OMG the Limiteds have become expensive. For that money you’d almost want a
written guarantee that your photos will look more professional. I was always a bit sceptical about that. I couldn’t even match the stunning Pentax kit results I’d see from forum members.
Primes don’t always deliver
So instead of a Limited I found a new FA50mm 1.4 for under $300 (nowadays it would probably be best to go for the cheaper DA35mm 2.4). What I learned from the lens was (1) it doesn’t guarantee better photos; (2) it doesn’t always deliver in low light; but (3) I can take great photos of my kids at or around f1.4 with very artist backgrounds/bokeh, as long as my kids stay still enough. I was getting fast aperture photos I’d never get from the zooms, and remain happy about that. However, I was surprised to find that the FA50mm was often not as good as the zooms outdoors – both budget zooms came with a hood, something the FA50 really needs outdoors but wasn’t included in the price.
Is there much IQ difference between expensive primes and budget zooms at f5.6 or f8?
More generally I started to wonder whether there was a real, significant image quality (IQ) difference between expensive Limited primes and budget zooms at my most commonly used aperture stops - f5.6 or f8? My experience is that if you want to blow up pictures to a bedroom wall size you may notice a difference. But otherwise the difference is hardly noticeable,
as long as you take control of the zoom’s aperture setting, e.g. manually set it to f5.6 or f8 and work from there. That’s very easy with modern digital cameras; they’ll do the work for you.
Using semi-manual settings will give you better looking photos
If I was going to do this all again, I’d still buy my budget zooms first and then invest in a cheap ($50), used, film era fast prime lens to learn semi-manual skills at different apertures. Skills that help to get the best out of both budget zooms and primes. Something like the M50mm f1.7 would be a great place to start. All the positive reviews here are not wrong! Don’t listen –as I did initially - to people with Limited lenses who say rather patronisingly, “that’s not such a good lens, the reviews are by people who don’t know any better”. Bottom line is that it may be a $50 manual lens from the film-era, not a $1,000 digital lens, but it is small and solid, fast, sharp and capable of “magic”. (However you define that).
Focus on a couple of focal lengths when you starting buying primes
By using zooms I found the focal lengths I really liked/used the most. Curiously, my two favorite focal lengths turned out to be: 28mm for walking-around and 85mm for special family/kids portraits. “Curiously”…because neither focal length is covered directly by new Pentax primes! But there are excellent alternatives, old and new. You’ll find there are differences to research between expensive and budget primes; between expensive and budget zooms; between new and used lenses; and between M42 and k-mount lens manufacturers. If I’d know that part about focal lengths from the start my lens collection would be far smaller, cheaper and more focused.
And when you do your lens research….
Don’t believe the hype, sometimes perpetuated by members of this forum, that only very expensive prime/Limited lenses take excellent photos, and these primes are faultless in the right photographer’s hands, regardless of “negative” test results and some legitimate owner concerns. At the same time, don’t believe put-downs from owners of high-cost primes that budget primes and budget zooms will never deliver excellence.
The majority of my “best photos” (as judged by friends and relations) have been taken with the two budget zooms, even though they now make up less than 10% of my lens spend. As an example, below is a photo taken by the budget Tamron 70-300mm at 300mm. Some people heavily criticise this “cheap lens” for producing unusable results at 300mm, and “its only a Tamron”. Guess it’s not a DA* 300mm $1,300 lens. But this photo, even slightly cropped, looks sharp and good enough to me; miles better than a point and shoot.
So please if you’re new to Pentax or thinking about a Pentax dslr, or thinking about investing in new lenses, don’t be discouraged by the $1,000 prices of some supposedly “must have” primes, or comments about the “less than prime” performance of budget zooms or budget primes. You have plenty of great, cost-effective options to choose from.
All the best
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I’m sure I’ve missed some key points, and could have got my points across in far fewer words, but I thought I post this thread so others can add their 2c if they want.