[cyberjunkie]

I've read a few posts that mention lenses known to be very good performers. I'll try my best to stick to the topic, and forget about a few of my favourites that enjoy widespread appreciation.
So I concentrate on optics that are either: 1) subject to some criticism 2) not very common 3) get non stellar evaluation in the review section.

For APS-C:
Sigma EX DG (non-Art) 1.4/30mm
Flares, has some field curvature, but has great center sharpness and gave me the best night shots. Very peculiar for a modern lens.

FF:
Revuenon MC 1.2/55mm (Tomioka design, PK mount)
Trashes the Porst (Cosina N) 1.2/55mm and also surpasses the Pentax 1.2/50mm. One of the very few lenses that always surprise me with a beautiful, beautiful rendition. Only the Leitz Summicron Canada 2/90mm has a similar magic, but the cost and the allure are on a different level

The Pentax-FA f/3.2-4.5 28-105mm AL proved to be the most surprising AF lens. All the late FA "silver" zooms were much better than I expected, even the cheaper ones with plastic mount, but this one is the best. I bought two examples to choose the best of the two. No visible difference, I guess i'll sell the one with no original hood...

For both APS-C and FF, I agree with the appreciation for the Helios-44 (especially the original one and the 44-2).
Old Tomioka-made single coated fifties, like the Auto Mamiya/Sekor 2/50mm and Auto Yashinon-DX 2/50mm, cost very little, are sharp enough, and have a beautiful glow wide open.
EDIT:
I forgot to mention one lens, maybe because it succumbed to fungus and is not in my travel bag anymore.
It's the Sigma Apo Macro f/4-5.6 70-300mm (old film version, pre-EX).
It's not so highly praised as other AF zooms with similar range, but I have been surprised by its performance on crop format, and before it got infested by fungal growth I had the chance to try it on FF, with incouraging results.
Here is an example, using its close focus capability:



Cleaning the lens would cost as much as the value of the lens on the second-hand market. Still undecided... I have other options but this lens has served me well, it's a real pity to retire it.

---

Last edited by cyberjunkie; 06-05-2018 at 11:22 AM.

[bdery]

I need to name two.
The 60-250. I knew I'd like it, but never thought it would be THAT good. I use it for tones of stuff I didn't think I would.

The FA 77. It's a lens I bought cheap, expecting to sell it for a small profit since I already had the DFA 100 macro WR and a few other lenses covering 77mm, but I took one picture with it and was in love.

Of course I named two well-regarded lenses, you could say that of course I should like them! The point is that they exceeded my expectations.

[pres589]

Funny. I'm on the opposite camp. DA50 was my main lens when my K30 got aperture block failure. Bought M50/1.7 to keep going without repair. It was my first vintage and first manual lens. So, to me, it was a step into a new world and I was blown away by it's IQ. To my taste M was much better lens than DA.

I've got an F 50 1.7 as well and I find that I prefer it to the M 50 1.4 as well. If it wasn't for me picking up a film camera recently, the M 50 1.4 would still be on my list of lenses to consider selling. And it may go back on that list if or when I acquire an M 85 f2.

[Eagle94VT]

Of course you do have to walk around with the 1 finger salute held in the air for all the people with the seriously negative attitudes about it.

Awesome. I have to agree. It's the go to for fast changing activities with the family - hiking, mountain biking, lake stuff. As I've posted elsewhere before - my largest print mounted in my house is from that piece of decentered garbage. Mattb also has a ton of great fotos with his.

[normhead]

I need to name two.
The 60-250. I knew I'd like it, but never thought it would be THAT good. I use it for tones of stuff I didn't think I would.

This is the lens sent to punish the "a zoom can't be as good as a prime "club" The end result of their bias is, they'll never own this lens. One that at least one guy trained in optics and optical physics has come to Pentax just to own.

It is also a perfect companion to the 18-135 (or 16-85). What the 18-135 is the not the best at, the DA*60-250 is. And the overlap seriously reduces lens changes. This lens didn't surprise me because Falconeye spoke so highly of it. But it's certainly lived up to his billing.

I bought it for a telephoto, wildlife and birds, but landscapes taken with it are also top notch. Every time we go though the "I want a wildlife lens" and people push it aside (verbally) in favour of the DA*300 I cringe. A DA* 300 is a fine lens, but DA*60-250 is like a stack of fine lenses. If you want one telephoto to do everything with, it's the 60-250. It does everything, sharp corner to corner.

For me the biggest argument in favour of the 60-250 is, that so many of my wildlife images are taken at less than 250mm. Using a 300 I would have missed the framing that made them special.

My ultimate wildlife collection.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/149541448@N08/albums/72157685900262555

10 of 22 taken with the 60-250. Other lenses used . Sigma 70-300, Tamron 300 2.8, DA*200, Tamron 90, F 70-210. So in all 6 lenses used for wildlife. The average number should be 3.7 images per lens. The DA* 60-250 is punching way over it's weight. Three times more than the expected average.

I'm unsure as to why people who don't own this lens even shoot Pentax. I'm not sure I'd still be shooting Pentax without it.

[BigMackCam]

The 60-250. I knew I'd like it, but never thought it would be THAT good.

This is the lens sent to punish the "a zoom can't be s good as a prime "club" The end result of their bias is, they'll never own this lens.

I'd already seen, read and digested enough about the 60-250 that I wasn't surprised by how good it is... just delighted that it's every bit as good as I'd hoped. A truly special lens

[MossyRocks]

For me it is the Tokina 28-70mm F2.8-4.3 that I bought for $30. I hadn't bought a zoom lens before and the only one I owned was the 18-55 DAL that came with the K-2000 so my expectations weren't very high. I wanted something faster than the kit lens and also wanted to get another k-mount lens (everything else at the time I had were screw mounts). I figured for $30 it was worth a gamble and I hadn't looked at a tokina lens before. I find it is my go to lens if I don't know what I may need. My only complaint is that it meters darker than it is so I have to set the EV compensation to -1.3 to get good results. If you don't have a problem with old and manual focus it would be worth a look. Problem is in using it I now want a prime at about 70mm + a little bit more so I at some point I will likely be the owner of a FA77 (because I also now own the SMC Pentax-FA 28-80mm F3.5-5.6 and never seem to spin it over to 80mm).

I would also say that the SMC Pentax-FA 28-80mm F3.5-5.6 surprised me because after the loss of my 18-55 DAL I needed a replacement autofocus zoom lens for taking cub scout pictures and that was all that was available near me on short order. I was expecting to be disappointed and just hate it. Instead I realized it isn't that bad and it is actually a good beater lens. I haul it out at scouting events all the time where dirt, mud, rain, snow, etc. may be an issue and you just want to capture the moment and need to make use of the snappy AF to capture squirrely scouts.

[mattb123]

Also the Helios 44 for me. Both the 44-2 and 44k-4 are beautifully sharp in the center and produce that swirly bokeh under the right conditions.
Fun, but also quite sharp by f/3.5 or so.
Also the Tamron 28-75/2.8 has been a great performer for me and is now getting lots of use on my K-1.

[clickclick]

Isn't the Helios 44 a Soviet copy of the CZJ Biotar? If so, I'm not surprised so many people like it. I absolutely love my CZJ Biotar - if I had to pick just one of my 50ish manual lenses to keep, that might be the one.

[northcoastgreg]

I usually do quite a bit of research before buying a lens, so I'm rarely pleasantly surprised when I actually acquire the lens in question. More often than not, the opposite happens. As I use the lens, I begin to notice weaknesses that no one else has come brought to attention. One lens, however, has exceeded my expectations: the HD DA 55-300 PLM. As a landscape photographer, I'm a big fan of high quality, slow aperture glass. The slower aperture glass is often significantly lighter than faster, constant aperture glass, and that can make a huge difference dragging the lens with you in the field. However, many of the best lenses out there are faster aperture: f2.8 and f4 zooms, for instance. This has been true for a long time when it came to telephoto lenses. If you wanted something lightweight in the 50-200 range, you had to give up some optical quality, particularly edge to edge sharpness. For years I made to with the old F 70-210, and later the M 75-150 --- nice enough lenses considering what they sell for, but not on par with my DA zooms. When Pentax released the 55-300 PLM, I was intrigued by some images I saw from it. Figuring it was unlikely we'd ever see a better compact telephoto zoom, I purchased a copy. I was merely hoping it would be better than my old F 70-210, but I was not prepared to discover how much better it turned out to be. At the wide end of the lens (which is what I bought it for), the 55-300 PLM is stellar. It's better than the DA 16-85 in the focal lengths the two lenses share in common. It's reignited my passion for telephoto landscape photography and is the one lens that I nearly always take with me.

[ChristianRock]

Early on, when I had just bought my first DSLR in 2013 (K20D) I found a guy from a nearby city selling an A3000 and 4 "A" lenses. I checked out what they were and thought, I really wanted the A 135 2.8 and the two other primes that came in the set (A 50 1.7 and A 28 2.8). But mainly, I was after that 135 which usually would be on the expensive side. So I contacted him and he was coming to a Falcons game in Atlanta so we set up to meet that day and I bought the set.
Now, years later, the A3000 died (on the first roll of film, actually...), the primes are gone (I sold them to buy the DA 35 2.4 new and didn't regret it) and the only lens I kept from the set is the A 70-210mm f/4 Macro - the one I didn't even want. It surprised me by being sharp wide open, and being sharper than the A 135 2.8 from f/4.5 and smaller. I still consistently use that A zoom for my kids baseball games and for fun, despite being pretty big and heavy. I even bought a 2nd copy cheap on Craigslist which turned out to have huge issues and is probably beyond repair. It's the only lens from which I ever attempted to have two copies...

[normhead]

I was merely hoping it would be better than my old F 70-210, but I was not prepared to discover how much better it turned out to be. At the wide end of the lens (which is what I bought it for), the 55-300 PLM is stellar. It's better than the DA 16-85 in the focal lengths the two lenses share in common.

I haven't had mine long, I bought it because I wanted to try out the faster AF. But same as you I've been impressed with what it does. I'm used to my Tammy 300 2.8, DA*60-250 and DA*200, so the long end hasn't impressed me at all. But as a walk around from 55-200mm it's an excellent lens. I've been more than impressed. Like my DA*60-250 without the weight. I've started going out with the PLM , the 100 macro and 21 ltd. and 40 XS for a lightweight hiking kit. It all goes into one easy to carry shoulder bag.

[reh321]

My biggest complaint with the K-1 is there's no 18-135 equivalent for it.

That is an unusually long range for a worth-while lens; the more typical 18-55mm and 28-80mm fit into the 3X "guideline"

[SSGGeezer]

All of the Limiteds and star lenses have been amazing to me, but the one that surprised me, (especially after reading the reviews,) was the DA 17-70 f4 SDM. it took nice mid range telephoto images and the wide end is what led me to buying my SMC Da 15 for shooting wide. I also was amazed at how good the close ups almost macro shots were throughout the focal range. I don't use it enough and the range is now covered by Limited's and my DA* 50-135 (which is one that is just flat out amazing!) Still a great lens and the negative Nancy's have scared many folks away from a lens which is very good.

[normhead]

the negative Nancy's have scared many folks away from a lens which is very good.

Is Negative Nancy a relative of Nervous Nellies?