[kh1234567890]

DA16-45. I must have a good one ...

[kernos]

Spiratone Plura-Coat 24mm 2.8 I was not expecting the 3D effect or the bubble bokeh.

MFD at f2.8

[pepperberry farm]

Spiratone Plura-Coat 24mm 2.8 I was not expecting the 3D effect or the bubble bokeh.

MFD at f2.8

nuts - I just received a Spiratone 28/2.... looks like I may need to find a 24/2.8 also...

[Eyewanders]

Super Takumar 35/3.5

There's magic inside.
Folks speak of 'pixie dust'... This little diminutive guy is Tinkerbell.

[SSGGeezer]

DA16-45. I must have a good one ...

You really make it seem like you did. Very good looking images here. That explains your evangelical enthusiasm for this lens! I looked at reviews and wasn't impressed by the rendering but you and Paul H here have shown some good stuff with this lens.

---------- Post added 06-07-18 at 06:03 PM ----------

nuts - I just received a Spiratone 28/2.... looks like I may need to find a 24/2.8 also...

@ Dave!

[pepperberry farm]

@ Dave!

yeah - it's why I hate these threads...

[Wheatfield]

For me, it was the M-150/3.5. I picked it up dirt cheap off of Adorama and wasn’t expecting much, but I thought it might make a nice 135 surrogate, since that is a lens I’ve always found to be either too long or a bit too short.
Surprise!! It’s a really decent little lens, one of the true sleepers in the Pentax line up.

---------- Post added 06-07-18 at 07:26 PM ----------

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

The 60-250 is truly a great lens. It’s the lens that turned me from primes only to a grudging acceptance that zooms could actually be pretty darned good. The SDM on my copy failed twice, once under warranty and then again about the same time I sold it. It was working when I boxed it, but DOA when it got to it’s new home. So it goes, I paid for the repair, and I hope it is still working for it’s new owner.

[kernos]

nuts - I just received a Spiratone 28/2.... looks like I may need to find a 24/2.8 also...

I think the 20mm is even more extreme:-)4

[Eyewanders]

I think the 20mm is even more extreme:-)4

Ohhhhhh THAT lens. I had the Soligor Wide-Auto 20mm version. Kept it for quite a while (couple years) but never did coax anything that I thought "worked".
May well have been my copy because I've seen some bananas looking results. Mine was always extremely soft and a bloom'in onion.

[Jonathan Mac]

Back in 1992 3 of the top 10 lenses in Pop Photography tests, which were optical bench tests were zooms. The whole zooms aren't as good thing is going on 40 years out of date. Some folks just haven't kept up.

There were oodles of folks walking around with camera bags full of primes, with not one top 10 lens that could match those three zooms. How out if it was that?

I'm not sure that this is really correct even now. I understand that there are resolution tests that can be performed on lenses which go well beyond what a camera sensor is capable of resolving, and that they show primes to be superior to even the best zooms. However, anyone can see that if such a test shows lens A to be superior to lens B but on a camera, whether in real-world use or lab/brick wall tests, they resolve to the same level, then it's an advantage that's not worth much and will have zero effect on photography performed with those lenses.

Where I can see such tests being relevant is in sample variation as it makes sense that such beyond-the-resolution-of-the-camera sharpness provides greater leeway in any given sample of the lens being good enough for use. It may even be that there is much less sample variation in a relatively simple prime than in a complex zoom, and this alone could potentially be responsible for primes being viewed as better than zooms - because at the end of the day we're talking about an average copy of lens A being compared to an average copy of lens B.

There are also other factors such as the plethora of cheap zooms. There aren't many cheap primes out there but there are millions and millions of cheap kit zooms, and this will lower the overall reputation of zooms. The cheapest primes are fastish (f/1-8 or slower) 50s and they're such easy to construct lenses with decades of refinement behind them that they're very sharp almost universally, much better than any kit 28-80 or 18-55.

I personally believe that in general primes are still better than zooms and, save any great advance in design or (more likely) manufacturing, they always will be. But are they so much better that they give noticeably better results in photography? I'm not so sure about that.

Lens design has progressed massively in the last ten years as a result of people bench-testing them on very high resolution digital cameras. We often complain about such people but we have a lot to thank them for.

[Ishpuini]

Hard to tell as there are many. So I selected 3.


In the early days when I scouted the internet for old glass, it would have to be the A35-105/3.5. I had heard good stuff about it, but it surprised me nevertheless. The range on APS-C didn't really suit me though, so I didn't keep it. It is *the* lens that I would try to source again should I ever decide to move from APS-C to FF (unlikely at the moment).

More recently the DA20-40 is the one that comes to mind. The Samyangs do as well (esp the 16/2 and the 135/2), but these were not as much of a surprise. I would never have expected to be using the DA20-40 as much as I do. I got it as a light weight back-up in case I got caught in bad whether with only non WR primes in the bag, but I ended up using it much more than my DA21 and FA31. Esp the DA21 has seen hardly any use since (and this was a favourite before).

Finally one I've seen mentioned a few times here as well. The DA10-17 fisheye is a little lens that I keep revisiting. It replaced my Zenitar 16/2.8 when that turned out not to be able to meet my expectations beyond 6MP. I got it cheap second hand, which was OK for what I considered a gimmick lens. However, its 10-17 range provided more flexibility and a wider range of application than I had expected, and over the years I've learned to make use of the fisheye effect in a much more subtle way. Now the DA10-17 more often than not replaces a rectilinear wide in my bag. Though I'm hoping the DA11-18/2.8 might change that again...

Wim

[Shedking]

Tokina 400mm / 5.6 SD AT-X. Stripped down, then rebuilt. Spread over two trays on the table for days while I figured out what i was doing.

Long glass I can keep in the bag just in case? Priceless....

[moray-eel-bite]

For me it’s two sigmas. The 8-16 that I bought just because it goes to 8. I didn’t expect how sharp it would be. Maybe I just have a really good copy but the detail it captures even wide open is crazy to me.

The other is a very old sigma 70-200 autofocus I think it’s a 4-5.6 or something similar. It’s a garbage lens that I just can’t throw out because every time I take pictures of people or pets with it they are really pleasing. I doubt it’s very sharp nor do I expect it to be but the warm colours are vibrant and it just works well.

[bdery]

I could add another one : the Lensbaby Burnside 35mm F3.8. It's not "sharp" by anyone's standard, but its rendering is really unique and pleasing.

[clikke]

SMC Pentax 50 f1,4....bought with a Pentax KM for €30,00 + extras....it was in very bad conditions with fungus and fog inside.
Once cleaned up it revealed all his extraordinary ability.....I use it in most photo applications