In pursuit of the perfect portrait lens for my Pentax, I have been perused a plethora of publications and the the time for pontification is pretty much up. It is time to put my money where my mind is and pull the trigger. Okay, enough with the pathetic poetry. Let me get on with it.
I have been thinking about rounding out my inadequate collection of lenses for a while now. In my mind there is now a gap between 50mm and 100mm. On the one end I have an M 50mm f/1.4 and and an A 50mm f/2.8 macro. On the other end there is an M 100mm f/2.8. I also have three zoom lenses that cover the 80mm mark but the need for a fast short tele remains unfilled, leaving me unfulfilled. The budget is about $300 US.
The
ne plus ultra of eighty fives is the A* 85mm f/1.4 but they are scarce and expensive. The same goes for the FA 85mm f/1.4. A more obvious choice would be the 77mm f/1.8 Limited. Autofocus, compact and highly regarded but it is outside of my budget. The Sigma 85mm f/1.4 Art is nice but pricey and getting harder to find. There is also the Zeiss ZK 85mm f/1.4, probably the scarcest of all the fast 85mm lenses made in K mount. However, expensive glass such as these do fit my budget. I would like to have a few pennies left in the piggy bank for other things.
On the other end of the budget spectrum is the Jupiter 9 85mm f/2. Not a bad lens but the quality control and condition on the older cheaper ones are all over the place. You pay your money and you take your chance with them. Later ones are a safer bet but they are hardly cheap. For the sort of money being asked for them I would rather have something with an automatic diaphragm, please. And fiddling with M42 adapters tends to break one's speed when out on a shoot.
In the middle of the money spectrum, there is a lot of choice. There are a few oddballs such as the f/2.2 and f/2.8 85mm soft focus Pentaxes. Interesting but very much an acquired taste. Definitely not a good choice for your first 85mm, maybe the second or third. The DA 70mm f/2.4 does not hold much appeal. I am sure it is a fine piece of kit but it is a bit on the short and slow side from where I am sitting.
Having eliminated a whole lot of lenses on a whole lot of whims, there are still a few choice left. Staying with the Asahi Optical Company, the obvious choice is the M 85mm f/2. There are not many around, but they can be found within my budget. If I want one, I had better move now while there are still a few fungus free examples left. It has been out of production for forty years, after all. The only problem with this choice is its older brother, the legendary K 85mm f/1.8. According to the interwebs the two are not in the same league. Why Pentax chose to discontinue the f/1.8 is a question that may never be answered. Perhaps the quest for added lightness led them on the wrong path. Perhaps I should stretch the budget and shell out for the famous f/1.8. It has a near identical Takumar twin in M42 but as said before, fiddling with adapters does not float my boat. But let's leave this pricey classic out of the equation for now.
There are still a couple of 85mm lenses that can be bought brand new in K mount. The Mitakon 85mm f/2 is supremely good value if one can live with a manual diaphragm, but I am not that guy. The Samyang/Rokinon/whatever 85mm f/1.4 looks really, really tempting. It is right inside the budget. It even has an 'A' position on the aperture ring, meaning that programmed exposure is available. No green button pressing to worry about. One less thing to worry about is always good. The problem here is that there are some questions about quality control on these. Most owners praise the construction but a few hard luck tales are to be found on the interwebs. One sad fellow had his Samyang develop a noisy focus mechanism. This is a bit of grind(!) for still photography but is a real deal breaker for videos. Apart from that it is not easy to focus but that goes with the fast lens territory.
So, do I go for the classic or the modern? The f/2 Pentax would be easier to focus. But an extra large aperture makes shots possible that would otherwise not be attainable. I am thinking low light as well as shallow DOF and bokeh here. I have some experience with regards to manual focussing the two extremes in aperture. I have an M 200mm f/4 as well as a K 200mm f/2.5. The latter is a real beast but the extra magic is worth the effort. For fast moving subject in good light, the former is a much safer bet. I suppose that this would apply to the eighty fives as well.
Wide open, the Samyang is a bit soft. Good for portraits and something that one lives with in low light. How the old and the new compares at say f/8 is not easy to say without owning both. That may be a an option as well, hehehe. At this stage, the Pentax is ahead slightly but I have not made up my mind.
Thoughts on the above? I am sure that there are a few Pentaxians who have experience with both lenses.