[Ronald Oakes]

I know this may sound kinda silly...…..lol.
Do any of You have a Lens that is Poorly Rated by most people , possibly here of PF , and yet just cant seem to give it up and like the rendering and still use it anyway ?
I DO ….and its the Takumar 300mm f4 …..Version 2.....The Beast ! Its the Preset version with the 18 blades.
Its has lots of purple fringing and shooting against any backlight is a pain. But when it comes together and the colors all just "Pop" and focus is spot on...….its sooooo Sweet !
I have tried to ditch it several times to no avail. Eventually put a baffle in the lens for Apsc and that helped a bit overall.
Its focusing distance is also really bad at something like 24'.....FEET !
To get around that for some uses I have a 9mm and a 12mm extension tube that I use and that helps with the closer critters.
Im just curious if there is others that have the same type infatuation with a certain lens that could be , or should be ditched.....and yet still hang on and keep trying ?Super

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Last edited by Ronald Oakes; 07-31-2019 at 10:31 PM.

[kiwi_jono]

Absolutely. While it gets pretty good reviews on PF, the FA 43 f1.9 Limited gets pretty poor reviews for what it is on at least opticallimits.com and lenstip.com, and have seen it criticised elsewhere too.

Mainly due to its corner sharpness and comes with comments to the effect "no good for landscape work".

However thats not been my experience. I find it to a near perfect general purpose focal length on the K-1, love the size and weight of it, relatively good speed and nice rendering. Yes corners could be sharper wide open but they are not that bad (at least on my copy anyway).

[Ronald Oakes]

Absolutely. While it gets pretty good reviews on PF, the FA 43 f1.9 Limited gets pretty poor reviews for what it is on at least opticallimits.com and lenstip.com, and have seen it criticised elsewhere too.
Mainly due to its corner sharpness and comes with comments to the effect "no good for landscape work".
However thats not been my experience. I find it to a near perfect general purpose focal length on the K-1, love the size and weight of it, relatively good speed and nice rendering. Yes corners could be sharper wide open but they are not that bad (at least on my copy anyway).

I have no experience with the FA 43 but have read tons of conflicting reviews that weren't too good. Looks like its working out great for you....Very Nice !

[clickclick]

I am always surprised when I see the 43 rated poorly, because I love it so much. I find I like it on both FF and APS-C. Would be hard pressed to give it up.

This past spring I picked up the 20-40 Limited knowing that people either loved it or not. Wide open sharpness at the 40 end is often criticized. Don't know if it's copy variations or what, but mine doesn't seem to suffer, and I am finding it is now on my K3 II more than most any other lens for general walk about shooting.

[TwoUptons]

Tamron 70-300

Purple fringes like it was designed by Prince.
Gets soft at the long end

But does pretty well otherwise as one of the few full frame consumer telephoto zooms available for Pentax.

And has a very useful close-focusing trick

Also is currently absurdly cheap new.

-Eric

[ZombieArmy]

Tak Bayonet 135 f2.5, it's getting more of a "cult following" I guess but it is often dismissed for other more expensive legacy pentax 135s despite it outperforming them in a lot of ways.

[aaacb]

I'm also puzzled by negative reviews of the fa 43, though if shot wide open I never have something of interest in the corners (it's a portrait or some concert photo in my case). Same for the 10-17 fisheye, another lens where reviews say it's not that sharp but I like mine just fine even though I can tell it's not as sharp as my other lenses.

[Ronald Oakes]

I am always surprised when I see the 43 rated poorly, because I love it so much. I find I like it on both FF and APS-C. Would be hard pressed to give it up.

This past spring I picked up the 20-40 Limited knowing that people either loved it or not. Wide open sharpness at the 40 end is often criticized. Don't know if it's copy variations or what, but mine doesn't seem to suffer, and I am finding it is now on my K3 II more than most any other lens for general walk about shooting.

I initialy loved my 20-40. However after using it for about a year , I also developed some frustration at times. Im one that has mixed feelings about it.

---------- Post added 08-01-19 at 07:28 ----------

Tak Bayonet 135 f2.5, it's getting more of a "cult following" I guess but it is often dismissed for other more expensive legacy pentax 135s despite it outperforming them in a lot of ways.

Exactly ! I have had two of them and end up trading them off to someone that asks. I have no issues at all with the 135mm Bayonet Taks and consider them quite capable. Nicely done images BTW.

---------- Post added 08-01-19 at 07:35 ----------

I'm also puzzled by negative reviews of the fa 43, though if shot wide open I never have something of interest in the corners (it's a portrait or some concert photo in my case). Same for the 10-17 fisheye, another lens where reviews say it's not that sharp but I like mine just fine even though I can tell it's not as sharp as my other lenses.

The 10-17 is one of those lenses that when reading the Reviews we go....Mehh. But then to actually use one is a different story !

[pres589]

My Kalt 28mm f2.8 k-mount prime. I like the out of focus rendering, I like the feel of the aperture and focus rings, and it is a nicely sized and weighted package. It's sort of a challenge to use in that it's really not that sharp until f8 or f11. And I recently found out that there's something wrong with the mount as it doesn't engage with the aperture linkage to tell my film Ricoh what the aperture ring is set to, so the camera thinks it's fully stopped down which renders the light meter basically useless (unless I'm actually shooting at f16).

So it's problematic and roundly outperformed by my Pentax M 28 f2.8 mk2 which is also about 1/2 the size of the Kalt. And yet I cannot see ever parting with this lens.

[Wheatfield]

I have no experience with the FA 43 but have read tons of conflicting reviews that weren't too good. Looks like its working out great for you....Very Nice !

The FA43 doesn’t really start to shine until it’s stopped down to around f/5.6, and at that point it is very shiny indeed. As landscapes tend to not be shot wide open..........

[dms]

Partly/often it is because lenses are designed to optimize (or balance) a number of conflicting requirements. And the resulting priorities/results may be liked by some and disliked by others.

As an example consider the Vivitar Series 1 28mm f/1.9 lens. It, like many fast lenses (especially older ones or newer ones that are not huge and costly), has a very soft glow (aberration) at or near wide open. To some this is unusable and others want that other soft personality. **

_____
** One reviewer of this lens [rparmar] said "Stopped down you get perfectly decent images, starting at f/4 I'd say. But there are a lot of other lenses that cover 28mm at f/4 and give good results, so whether you want to use this one has a lot to do with your feelings about older lenses. I honestly don't think one could justify this on IQ alone, unless you are going to use it at f/1.9 for effect." Which actually is not a bad summary--many reviewers would have simply said "Not good, the IQ is unusable at/near wide open, and then why buy a fast lens."

[ZombieArmy]

Partly/often it is because lenses are designed to optimize (or balance) a number of conflicting requirements. And the resulting priorities/results may be liked by some and disliked by others.

As an example consider the Vivitar Series 1 28mm f/1.9 lens. It, like many fast lenses (especially older ones or newer ones that are not huge and costly), has a very soft glow (aberration) at or near wide open. To some this is unusable and others want that other soft personality. **

_____
** One reviewer of this lens [rparmar] said "Stopped down you get perfectly decent images, starting at f/4 I'd say. But there are a lot of other lenses that cover 28mm at f/4 and give good results, so whether you want to use this one has a lot to do with your feelings about older lenses. I honestly don't think one could justify this on IQ alone, unless you are going to use it at f/1.9 for effect." Which actually is not a bad summary--many reviewers would have simply said "Not good, the IQ is unusable at/near wide open, and then why buy a fast lens."

I think the legacy 50 1.4s encompass this philosophy more than anything else. My 8 element tak is decently sharp in the center and dreamy in the corners. Made in an era where corner sharpness was not necessarily desired at such an open aperture. Nowadays though if that blade of grass in the corner of your wide open shot isn't perfectly sharp then it's a terrible lens that no photographer could ever love!

[Ronald Oakes]

I think the legacy 50 1.4s encompass this philosophy more than anything else. My 8 element tak is decently sharp in the center and dreamy in the corners. Made in an era where corner sharpness was not necessarily desired at such an open aperture. Nowadays though if that blade of grass in the corner of your wide open shot isn't perfectly sharp then it's a terrible lens that no photographer could ever love!

Exactly Right ! But then smack that same lens made for a FF Film camera on an APSc camera and the corners are sharp because of the smaller format that everyone Loves at the moment ! Go figure......lol.

[microlight]

What’s interesting about the Marmite 20-40 is that strictly speaking it’s off-topic as it’s actually one of the highest-rated lenses in the database.

[ZombieArmy]

What’s interesting about the Marmite 20-40 is that strictly speaking it’s off-topic as it’s actually one of the highest-rated lenses in the database.

tbf there really aren't many lenses that are super poorly rated in the database.

Even my Sears 80-200, which I consider a strictly "for fun" lens rates at an 8.09.

Sears 80-200mm F4 Macro Lens Reviews - Miscellaneous Lenses - Pentax Lens Review Database