Hello forum!
Thought I would share my experience with my "new" F and FA lenses....
I bought a couple of F and one FA lens together with an old Pentax SFX camera and some other Pentax gear.
The lenses are:
SMC Pentax-F 24-50mm F4
SMC Pentax-F 35-70mm F3.5-4.5
SMC Pentax-FA 35-80mm F4-5.6
All appearing to be in good condition ( apart from the 35-70mm which has some sort of "tiny smearing" inside the front lens elements)
Prior to buying the package, I read about the lenses in the magnificent reviews here on this forum, and the F lenses did receive quite good reviews. So I had my hopes up when they arrived. In particular for the the F 24-50mm, which just by the touch of it felt like a good quality lens, and the reviews were OK aswell.
The Pentax FA-35-80 on the other hand felt like a toy-lens, all plastic and flimsy handling....so I thought that lens would be the least useful.
So I attached them to my Pentax K-50 and quickly compared them to my DA50mm prime for reference, and just for fun, my DA18-135mm @50mm.
As I mentioned, I had big hopes for the 24-50, and I was a bit baffled when it came out as the softest of the trio, and even more astonished when the "junk" FA 35-80 was the best of them, not far behind my modern lenses IQ wise.
I compared the lenses at 50mm, f5,6, iso100, and 1/20s. Camera on tripod, and 2s delay. I focused on the white sign attached to the fence/barrier, pics are heavily center cropped, but otherwise unedited.
I will perhaps check them more thoroughly later, trough the aperture and fl range, but it seems the 24-50 really is not the best of them....
In particular it lacks contrast...or something...it looks just a bit soft.
Just look at the pics: , the F24-50 @50mm on top, and my DA18-135 @50mm middle and FA35-80 @50mm bottom
Any thoughts
?
Last edited by fotofinken; 03-21-2018 at 12:57 AM.