[reeftool]

Notice I didn't say the lens was disappointing..... I just haven't discovered what to use it for yet. For the money I paid for it, it's good for just filling out the selection in the camera case.

I'm much the same with my DA40 Limited. It isn't a bad lens, I just don't use it much because it's a focal range I just don't use. I bought it used cheap enough, mostly because at the time, a lot of people were raving about it.

[danielchtong]

I agree. I don't shoot at 1.7, but my copy was unimpressive at any aperture................

It helps to have a beautiful girl for a model. But I agree this looks very good.

Pretty model can not improve the sharpness of the lens. F 50mm F1.7 is certainly a sharp lens. Your trouble may be just due to sample difference.

[normhead]

Pretty model can not improve the sharpness of the lens. F 50mm F1.7 is certainly a sharp lens. Your trouble may be just due to sample difference.

A pretty model can help you not obsess about a lens's lack of sharpness though.

[pres589]

I can vouch for all of the above regarding the model and the F 50 1.7. Pretty great lens although I think my copy of the DA 50 1.8 beats my copy of the F 50 1.7 in a hard to describe way that relates to smoothness.

[Class A]

The FA 43/1.9 Ltd. I found its barrel distortion to be annoying.

I respect your sensitivity regarding distortion but the Photozone review of the FA 43/1.9 Limited states

"Typical for standard/normal lenses the Pentax FA 43mm exhibits only a minor degree of barrel distortion (0.65%) - this is nothing to worry about. "

It certainly never bothered me. If it would bother anyone, such mild and well-behaved distortion can be very easily removed, say with Capture One even already during import.

The FA 43/1.9 Limited is such a gem of a lens, it seems a shame to dismiss it on the basis of a little bit of barrel distortion.
It certainly isn't strong near wide open in the corners, but has a lot of character in that range and gets crazy sharp quickly.

[Class A]

I'm not going to make friends with this, but I've yet to find a copy of the FA* 24/2 that does produce pretty terrible images towards the corners even when stopped down.

I believe this lens was very popular during film days because its high contrast suggests acuity, which however, is not backed up by resolution. I guess for smallish prints, the lens could produce stunning results, but nowadays it just takes a click to zoom in and see the gross lack of performance. I have trouble imagining how one can produce any large prints of images made with this lens without seeing issues when examining the print up close.

I'm usually the first to disagree when people state that lenses from the film era are not fit for digital high resolution sensors -- the good ones still work very nicely, perhaps apart from PF which one does not expect at this level from more modern designs anymore -- but it seems the FA* 24/2 is a lens that worked well for small prints in the film era but isn't a stellar performer on today's sensors anymore.

Perhaps I just need to find a good copy...

N.B., the pentaxforums lens reviews pretty much all give this lens very high scores, but

1. this could be a case of systematic overrating (it happens), and
2. many describe softness near wide open; not sure why I'd pay the going rate for a lens that starts becoming useful at f/4 and even then has issues near the edges/corners.

I'd love to own a good copy of this lens, but sadly it seems more wise to choose the Pentax 15-30/2.8 instead.

[DeadJohn]

However, there have been lenses over the years that I eagerly awaited, only to find that they were "meh".

The FA 43. I think I have a good copy because the sharpness, color, contrast all look good.

The fault is mostly mine. My keepers tend to be significantly wider or longer; I just don't do a good job seeing things at 43mm. I also don't do thin DoF well; things look cliche and forced when I shoot at f1.9.

I do intend to revisit the FA 43 for night street photography. With my K-5, 43mm was too long plus the AF was too slow. The K-1 will work better. Now that autumn is here it gets darker earlier and not too cold, so I need to make some time to practice night street shots.

[pepperberry farm]

The FA 43. I think I have a good copy because the sharpness, color, contrast all look good.

The fault is mostly mine. My keepers tend to be significantly wider or longer; I just don't do a good job seeing things at 43mm. I also don't do thin DoF well; things look cliche and forced when I shoot at f1.9.

I do intend to revisit the FA 43 for night street photography. With my K-5, 43mm was too long plus the AF was too slow. The K-1 will work better. Now that autumn is here it gets darker earlier and not too cold, so I need to make some time to practice night street shots.

I'll try to help by taking that FA43 off of your hands for cheap - anything I can do to help another Pentax shooter....

don't worry, guys - I'll take one for the team....



(:

[goatsNdonkey]

Since I would be very unlikely to want to produce the size enlargements that would make an FA* 24/2 look bad, I'd be happy to give one of those poor copies of it a new home, rather than see it tossed in the ash can.

Similarly, it may depend a lot on the kinds of pictures one takes whether softness wide open or some softness in the corners is a terrible downside for a lens. That is one of the reasons that reviewers who either post some sample photos or who go into much more detail about what kinds of pictures a lens performs best or least well with are more helpful.

Think of the Helios 44-2 f/2 58mm lens. It's very soft wide open, if you don't count most copies being tack sharp in the very center wide open, and it has to be stopped down a good bit to get sharp all over. A lot of photographers can do a lot with those characteristics, many are even drawn to the kind of character that lens adds to pictures, but certainly it isn't going to meet the needs of all others. Someone who loves that lens might well give a great review of the FA* 24/2, unless they got that lens to make another kind of picture and expecting the kinds of sharpness and resolution Class A doesn't find in it.

Then we have to consider that 'a bit soft wide open" is one of the most common descriptors in the lens reviews. It's rare at least one reviewer doesn't say that about a film-era lens. I think if someone needs a lens with sharpness across the field wide open, and little to no softness in corners ever, that person needs to read the PF reviews with a suspicious eye, and probably skip over lenses where the reviews really don't provide the kind of evidence that shows those characteristics he or she is looking for.

I'm not going to make friends with this, but I've yet to find a copy of the FA* 24/2 that does produce pretty terrible images towards the corners even when stopped down.

I believe this lens was very popular during film days because its high contrast suggests acuity, which however, is not backed up by resolution. I guess for smallish prints, the lens could produce stunning results, but nowadays it just takes a click to zoom in and see the gross lack of performance. I have trouble imagining how one can produce any large prints of images made with this lens without seeing issues when examining the print up close.

I'm usually the first to disagree when people state that lenses from the film era are not fit for digital high resolution sensors -- the good ones still work very nicely, perhaps apart from PF which one does not expect at this level from more modern designs anymore -- but it seems the FA* 24/2 is a lens that worked well for small prints in the film era but isn't a stellar performer on today's sensors anymore.

Perhaps I just need to find a good copy...

N.B., the pentaxforums lens reviews pretty much all give this lens very high scores, but

1. this could be a case of systematic overrating (it happens), and
2. many describe softness near wide open; not sure why I'd pay the going rate for a lens that starts becoming useful at f/4 and even then has issues near the edges/corners.

I'd love to own a good copy of this lens, but sadly it seems more wise to choose the Pentax 15-30/2.8 instead.

[normhead]

Since I would be very unlikely to want to produce the size enlargements that would make an FA* 24/2 look bad,

Exactly my way of thinking. My FAJ 18-35 is a pretty good looking lens on a K-1, because i am always reducing the image size so much the image gets sharper as its reduced. Pixel peeping it's as bad as ever. Reduced to 2650 x 1600, the largest i usually view images at, it looks pretty darn good. Oversampling is a wonderful thing with less than stellar quality glass.

[mattb123]

My Sears 135/2.8 with Macro was pretty good on crop. I was excited to try it on FF once I got my K-1 and the edges are terrible on FF. Not terrible in a charming Helios kind of way, but just weirdly soft and distorted. I gave that lens to my son to use with his (my old) K-5 where it is still a decent performer.

---------- Post added 10-06-17 at 09:49 AM ----------

Exactly my way of thinking. My FAJ 18-35 is a pretty good looking lens on a K-1, because i am always reducing the image size so much the image gets sharper as its reduced. Pixel peeping it's as bad as ever. Reduced to 2650 x 1600, the largest i usually view images at, it looks pretty darn good. Oversampling is a wonderful thing with less than stellar quality glass.

Yeah, my FAJ 18-35 didn't get much use before I knew I needed a better wide FF lens. It's also so plasticy it feels like a toy.

[normhead]

My Sears 135/2.8 with Macro was pretty good on crop. I was excited to try it on FF once I got my K-1 and the edges are terrible on FF. Not terrible in a charming Helios kind of way, but just weirdly soft and distorted. I gave that lens to my son to use with his (my old) K-5 where it is still a decent performer.

---------- Post added 10-06-17 at 09:49 AM ----------



Yeah, my FAJ 18-35 didn't get much use before I knew I needed a better wide FF lens. It's also so plasticy it feels like a toy.

But,hopefully it will last until Pentax introduces the DFA 18-35 ƒ4 WR I'm waiting for.

I'm thinking sometime on the next 5 years would be OK.

[mattb123]

But,hopefully it will last until Pentax introduces the DFA 18-35 ƒ4 WR I'm waiting for.

I wound up with both a Rokinon 14 and a 15-30/2.8 pretty quickly, neither of which need to be discussed in this particular thread!

[normhead]

I wound up with both a Rokinon 14 and a 15-30/2.8 pretty quickly, neither of which need to be discussed in this particular thread!

I still rely on my Sigma 8-16 on a K-3 for that type of image if I want excellence. But, it's larger than I'd like. And I'm seriously considering a K-70 to get the kind of DR and low light performance I've become accustomed to.

[cyberjunkie]

I read a lot of lens reviews, especially here at PF where reviews often go into more detail than those in other places, but review reading leads me to EXPECT two things as constants:
1) There is a a fair amount of lens copy variability (especially among 30-50 year old vintage copies I tend to be interested in when I can afford them);
2) There is a gigantic amount of lens-user-standards variability.
What else could explain that a lens might get several 8s and 9s for sharpness, maybe even a 10, but somebody else will give the same lens a 6 or even a 5! Then it takes a special user frame of mind to assign a lens designed and manufactured as manual focus with low score for "handling" because it isn't autofocus. You can't read a lot of PF reviews without finding a number of these kinds of inconsistencies. Review inconsistencies lead me to assume that my own impression of a copy of the lens I might get could vary from those of others. Also, it is useful to consider the most common complaints about most lenses: (a) the corners are soft; or (b) the lens is soft wide open; or (c) if the lens is a zoom, that it has sharpness or aberration problems especially at one or both of its zoom extremes. It's the rare lens that no reviewer charges with one of those problems.


,

Reviews, especially those available on this site, have for sure an impact on the kind of expectations we have when we buy a new lens.
As a collector of large format historical objectives, and owner of more than 300 lenses readily usable on Pentax DSLR bodies, I'd say I have a minimum of knowledge about photographic optics, though I still depend, at least partially, on online reviews to shape up my personal expectations about the performance of a newly acquired lens.
How a certain lens matches the initial expectations is the key. If the lens is expensive and has a cult status, I'd be unhappy if the performance is just average. If I don't expect anything special and I find it's a decent performer, then I'm happy, even if it doesn't beat other more expensive lenses in the same focal range.
User reviews can be a valuable source of informations, especially those well done, but the averaged votes have little value. Better stick to a few selected reviews that evidence in a balanced way the pluses and minuses of a certain objective.
Some very low votes have a simple reason: the owner bought a lemon! If I think I have a bad sample, I'd never write a review... unless I have good reasons to think that it's a common problem, that is shared by many other examples of the same lens.
Sample variation is a reality, affecting even high_cost brand new optics. Of course the difference between apparently identical lenses could be quite dramatic, if we consider lenses that were built decades ago.
If one sample is damaged or in some way defective, it doesn't mean that other examples of the same lens will be as disappointing.
It is also true that the delta between a rather poor and a very good sample is not so wide. If on average a certain lens is barely decent, even the best of the crop will never be outstanding.
All optics are a compromise, you can't have at the same time cheap, sharp, fast and well built!
As others have already pointed out, knowledge is a good way to avoid frustration.
If we know what we can expect from a given lens, and what we can't, it's more likely that our new acquisitions will suit us better, and that we won't be disappointed (because we had unrealistic expectations in the first place).

In my personal experience I've been badly disappointed only a few times, and the reason was always an irrepairable damage. To be more precise, the real disappointments were lenses that were either missing rings/spacers, had badly bent focusing/zoom sleeves, had very bad "gravity accidents", or had been tampered with in some way. Even when possible, the repair was not economically viable.
As far as I remember I never returned them, cause it was either an "as is" purchase, or because the expense of a traceable shipment would have made it a loss anyway...
The biggest source of frustration doesn't come from irreparable lenses, it comes from expensive ones that are not in perfect conditions (as they were supposed to be), and that for some reason can't be returned. It happened twice to me, and in both cases the repair wasn't cheap! And both lenses showed absolutely no signs of damage. I found it rather infuriating...
Never happened with vintage lenses, AF or MF, M42 or PK, Pentax or 3rd party.
Considering I don't have many digital era lenses, but I have plenty of old ones, including a few pre-war micro objectives that are still very usable, well, I guess it makes sense to share my personal experience. I have old lenses that obviously fell to the ground multiple times (two have partially missing filter threads!), but almost all of them work more or less the way they are supposed to. Other contemporary lenses, looking perfectly mint, showed a number of important problems, namely: decentering, vignetting, hard to turn zoom ring, focus ring stuck to min focusing distance during AF operation.
From my personal experience, I tend to blindly trust the pictures of a vintage lens. Most of the times it will be more than ok, and if a repair is needed, it will likely be economical. I will never buy again a second hand contemporary zoom, without making sure it could be returned.

Btw, now my favorites are all vintage optics, the advent of the K-1 full frame has reinvigorated my appreciation for them. For example my choice for portraits is currently the Summicron M 2/90mm, and my go-to for bokeh is the Trioplan N 2.8/100mm. I guess it's already clear that absolute sharpness is not my main concern What leaves me cold is the lack of both sharpness AND those aberrations that give a peculiar rendition of the image. It can be either a pleasant bokeh, a smooth transition between focus planes, or a touch of field curvature that drives the attention to the center of the frame.
With vintage lenses, frustration almost always comes from irrational expectations.
I report a personal experience, which could be of some use.
I am the proud owner of an old "Pentax Distagon", the 2/28mm series K "Hollywood" with floating optics. It is a good lens, even today, but it's also a valuable collector's item, so years ago I decided to buy another fast 28mm for everyday use.
At first I found a Panagor (Kino made) 2.5/28mm in M42 mount. It didn't satisfy me, especially at large apertures. After reading a few positive reviews about the Kiron f/2, coming from the same factory but with a more modern optical layout, I decided to go for it. I bought both the 2/24mm and the 2/28mm, one marked Kiron and one Vivitar.
After trying them wide open, I realized that the improvement over the Panagor was quite marginal.
At f/5.6 or f/8 most 28mm perform quite well, including the Pentax-M f/3.5 and a late Komura in PK mount (which I suspect would be the best, if I ever decide to compare all of them).
The problem lies in my wrong expectations. Even if they proved their worth in the magazine tests published at that time, fast film lenses of that vintage were to be used wide open only in extreme circumstances, with very low illumination. The max aperture allowed for easy focusing, but pictures were mostly shot stopped down. If the performance wide open was deemed as "good", that judgement had a meaning if compared with other similar optics of the time. By today's standards, it's not "good" anymore... unless we are looking for a soft-ish look (which I often do).
At this point of my long learning curve (started buying PK lenses in the late seventies), I've come up to the conclusion that finding a fast vintage wide angle that fully satisfies me is a rather difficult task, while some very old super-fast teles have surprised me in the most positive way. My Helios 40 1.5/85mm, built in the Soviet Union on 1961, is still a great portrait lens, with a very nice optical signature.

Looking back, most of the lenses that I found rather disappointing were in fact just dull, bland. All of them, bar the defective ones, are perfectly capable to take decent pictures, if used at their sweet spot, and with a few caveats (use a lens hood, avoid sun/strong lights in the frame, a little PP to bump contrast and sharpen).
The best way to avoid frustration is knowledge, which sometimes involves reading a little between the lines. Some reviews are useful, some are misleading. Some reflect frustration from the acquisition of a bad sample, others show very little criticism (I bought it, it works, so it's a ten!... more a self-reassuring psychological mechanism than a real review).
I always try to have a "virgin" approach when I try a new optic, but I would never call my opinions as objective. There are lenses that for some strange reason you madly like, and others that are perfectly fine, but will never warm you up.
I have a couple of lenses that for some mysterious reason never took an ugly picture
One is the Revuenon (Tomioka) 1.2/55mm. Last journey I tried in its place the Pentax-K 1.2/50mm, but I didn't like it the same way. Now I have with me the Porst (Cosina) 1.2/55mm, but I haven't tried it enough to see how it fares compared to the others.
The format makes for an important difference. A 50/55mm is a proper portrait lens on APS-C, while on FF is usable for full figure or even group portraits.
While it's undoubtedly true that the cropped format hides the border miseries of some optics, I found that some old film lenses really shine only on full frame.

Sorry for the long, winded post. I hope it made some sense
I'm looking forward to other replies cause I'm always very curious about what people find frustrating in their lenses, and why it is so.

Cheers

Paolo