[red5isalive]

Hello there,

I just bought this lens after reading a lot here at the forum (here: SMC Pentax-FA 35-80mm F4-5.6 Reviews - FA Zoom Lenses - Pentax Lens Reviews & Lens Database) and just payed for it and a Pentax MZ-10, 20 euros.

I wanted badly to try this lens after so much read about it, and I am wondering. I don't know if it's about my copy, or it is common.

In my K5 it has an erratic autofocus, that focuses very fast but then tries to correct it, and gets out of focus by, again, focus right. And keeps trying to focus by not focusing and focusing. I found it weird, no other lens has done that before. Did it happened to any of you?

A part from that I found it nice, but as I have seen many samples of flowers that seem like Macro pictures, my copy does not like me to get quite close to the flowers, it needs you to keep some distance.

I have had nice pleasant photos with it, playing with it's bokeh and I liked it.

I am sure I will take this lens out with me for some other kind of photography (long exposure for instance) or at some other time during the day (when I did it it was at the afternoon, and there was some direct soft sun light that I guess this lens hates).

I do understand too, that for that price, it is a great buy, and a wonderful lens, don't get me wrong. Just I expected a bit more of a better performance in some situations.

What is your opinion about this lens?
Thanks!

[jatrax]

I don't have that lens but I have the FA 28-105 f/3.2-4.5 of roughly the same era and while a nice lens it struggles to auto-focus as well. No other lens I own has such erratic focusing.

I do understand too, that for that price, it is a great buy, and a wonderful lens, don't get me wrong. Just I expected a bit more of a better performance in some situations.

It's a $20 lens.........

[red5isalive]

Thanks jatrax,

I see then it's something common on that kind of lenses probably.

Yes, indeed! It's a 20$ one so it does not bother me, I was just wondering if that was a common "problem".