[Ronald Oakes]

Although the A7 MkII doesn't qualify as recent, I can confirm that - like the original A7 series - it doesn't fare well with short registration distance wide angle lenses where the rear element is close to the sensor. The main issue manifests as colour shift in the corners and sometimes the borders. Shooting in (or converting to) black & white masks the issue to some extent... you can still see where the colour shift is happening, but presented in monochrome tones, it's usually not an issue and simply becomes part of the photograph's character

And this leads to REVIEWS like this ! The A7 Has spoken !
https://www.pentaxforums.com/lensreviews/SMC-Pentax-A-35mm-F2-Lens.html#review8823


---------- Post added 08-29-19 at 20:32 ----------

[/COLOR]

At least A7 users aren't making modifications to the lens...

Right....They just leave REVIEWS like this...https://www.pentaxforums.com/lensreviews/SMC-Pentax-A-35mm-F2-Lens.html?#review8823SMC Pentax-A 35mm F2 Reviews - A Prime Lenses - Pentax Lens Reviews & Lens Database

---------- Post added 08-29-19 at 20:35 ----------

There has been a gradual improvement in some aspects wrt M-mount lenses on A7 series of cameras, but they did not resolve the poorer edges.
AFAIK
A7r - the worst for legacy lenses. Blurred edges worse than the A7 and any other later models, vignetting, color casted vignetting
A7 - blur edges, color casted vignetting, sensor reflection issues
A7s and onwards - blur edges (took care of the other issues) ; In fact, the low mp count of the 7s series hides the poorer edges somewhat

The thick sensor stack affects legacy wide SLR lenses too (I've compare this ), though to a much lesser extent.

And this leads to Reviews like this that completely Trash our review section. What ? The A7 has Spoken ?SMC Pentax-A 35mm F2 Reviews - A Prime Lenses - Pentax Lens Reviews & Lens Database
I know this is a very Fair forum here. But this review just went Over the Top....Wow...How informative for anyone reading it.
The End result is 1 post , from a new member never to be seen again ...….and the Lens gets a Failing grade ?

---

Last edited by Ronald Oakes; 08-29-2019 at 08:59 PM.

[edom31]

without them, my hobby would've not been possible. inexpensive, interesting, intricate...

[lesmore49]

I mostly use modern digital lenses on my Pentax DSLR's. The modern lenses with their fast acting auto focus are a pleasure to use, the images I get for the most part are very sharp...what's not to like about modern lenses ?

Nothing , really.

But I do have some Pentax legacy glass that I use of course on my old film cameras...and some with my DSLR cameras. Chief among the legacy lenses in my view is my 'ole favourite...a Pentax lens I bought in December '84...my SMC Pentax-A 35-105mm Macro F3.5. It's built like the proverbial tank...well finished...some say it is the stack of primes, which is high praise indeed, for a zoom lens.

It cost a bundle new back in the '80's and to me it was worth every pfennig. It's sharp at every setting, reliable as a Swiss Watch...a good Swiss watch... still operates smooth , has been almost everywhere with me, throughout different parts of the world and has taken many memorable photos...either on my K1000 or modern digitals. The bokeh is, in a word and a word I don't use at all...generally....dreamy.

Yep, I've said it...dreamy bokeh.

And it's such a handy lens...going from moderate wide angle to moderate telephoto and everything in between...and with a bit of macro thrown in. Talk about the perfect general purpose lens...right up there with my digital...18-135 and 28-105. With these focal lengths...you pretty well have most of what you need. you want portrait...you got it...you want vintage hot rod...@ the wide angle...you got it...family birthday parties...you got it.

I don't use my A 35-105 as much as I used to use it...but I do take it out for an airing every so often and I'm always glad I do.

Legacy glass has a place at my table.

[Ronald Oakes]

I mostly use modern digital lenses on my Pentax DSLR's. The modern lenses with their fast acting auto focus are a pleasure to use, the images I get for the most part are very sharp...what's not to like about modern lenses ?

Nothing , really.

But I do have some Pentax legacy glass that I use of course on my old film cameras...and some with my DSLR cameras. Chief among the legacy lenses in my view is my 'ole favourite...a Pentax lens I bought in December '84...my SMC Pentax-A 35-105mm Macro F3.5. It's built like the proverbial tank...well finished...some say it is the stack of primes, which is high praise indeed, for a zoom lens.

It cost a bundle new back in the '80's and to me it was worth every pfennig. It's sharp at every setting, reliable as a Swiss Watch...a good Swiss watch... still operates smooth , has been almost everywhere with me, throughout different parts of the world and has taken many memorable photos...either on my K1000 or modern digitals. The bokeh is, in a word and a word I don't use at all...generally....dreamy.

Yep, I've said it...dreamy bokeh.

And it's such a handy lens...going from moderate wide angle to moderate telephoto and everything in between...and with a bit of macro thrown in. Talk about the perfect general purpose lens...right up there with my digital...18-135 and 28-105. With these focal lengths...you pretty well have most of what you need. you want portrait...you got it...you want vintage hot rod...@ the wide angle...you got it...family birthday parties...you got it.

I don't use my A 35-105 as much as I used to use it...but I do take it out for an airing every so often and I'm always glad I do.

Legacy glass has a place at my table.

That's a Highly underrated lens in my book , especially on the K-1 or Vintage Pentax SLR.

[monochrome]

That's a Highly underrated lens in my book , especially on the K-1 or Vintage Pentax SLR.

I’ve had that lens for years. It is on my Keeper List, The DFA50/1.4 is also one of those keeper lenses.

[johnha]

[/COLOR]And this leads to Reviews like this that completely Trash our review section. What ? The A7 has Spoken ?SMC Pentax-A 35mm F2 Reviews - A Prime Lenses - Pentax Lens Reviews & Lens Database
I know this is a very Fair forum here. But this review just went Over the Top....Wow...How informative for anyone reading it.
The End result is 1 post , from a new member never to be seen again ...….and the Lens gets a Failing grade ?

Hopefully other A7 users will find it and move on, looking for another lens to adapt while Pentax users hopefully note this is an individual 'review' at odds with the rest.

I still can't understand how Sony ended up with light leaks from their own lens mount & lenses, basic camera engineering I'd have thought.

[BigMackCam]

And this leads to REVIEWS like this ! The A7 Has spoken !

Right....They just leave REVIEWS like this...

And this leads to Reviews like this that completely Trash our review section. What ? The A7 has Spoken ?
...
I know this is a very Fair forum here. But this review just went Over the Top....Wow...How informative for anyone reading it.
The End result is 1 post , from a new member never to be seen again ...….and the Lens gets a Failing grade ?

The issue of smearing and colour shift manifests when using short registration, moderately wide to very wide angle lenses with the rear element close to the sensor, where light is hitting the borders and corners of the A7-series sensor filter at a very acute angle. That primarily means rangefinder lenses, or those adapted from other cameras with short flange focal distance. Since the SMC Pentax-A 35mm f/2 is a K-mount lens with a long registration distance and a rear element that never protrudes all that far back (otherwise it would foul the SLR / DSLR mirror), it's not affected by the A7-series thicker filter.

I don't know why the member in question gave such poor scores for frame edge performance of the lens... Maybe he has a bad copy, maybe his methodology was flawed (e.g. focusing centrally and not accounting for field curvature), or maybe his expectations and/or subjective scoring were simply unrealistic for a vintage lens on a 42MP sensor, with test images viewed at 100% reproduction. But I don't see how it can have anything to do with the sensor filter, given the long distance between it and the lens' rear element. If we were talking about a Leica M-mount wide angle lens, that would be different.

As for trashing our review section... unfortunately, there are many reviews that are unrealistically gushing or damning in equal measure. Copy variation, subjective assessment, user ability and testing methodology all play a part. One more questionable review isn't going to make much difference, IMHO. Best just to skip over it

EDIT: A company called Kolari Vision offers a thin filter upgrade modification for the A7-series cameras to improve performance with legacy rangefinder lenses. I see it now also offers the same service for Nikon Z, Canon R, and Panasonic S1-series mirrorless cameras, so it seems like the problem isn't isolated to Sony...

---

Last edited by BigMackCam; 08-30-2019 at 01:53 AM.

[clackers]

Phillip Reeve shoots on Sony and gives his pros as:

"They can be very cheap, you can get a great 1.4/50 lens for $50. For most applications such a lens will give you 90% of the performance of a $1000 Zeiss 1.8/55 FE. For the $1000 you would have to pay for that Zeiss you can buy an excellent set of five lenses from 20 to 300mm.
You have a huge choice between thousands of lenses ranging from exotic ones with lots of “character” to some of the very best lenses available.
There are 30-year-old primes with better image quality than many modern lenses. Of course progress has happened in recent years but still affordable primes are often sharper than very expensive modern zooms.
Old lenses are usually beautifully built from nothing but metal and glass which makes it a joy to handle them. They can last a lot longer than modern lenses which are full of electronics and very complex designs, both of which make them more likely to fail.
They also hold their value much better than modern lenses. With some patience you can sell most manual lenses without a loss but with new lenses you can expect to lose 30% in the first year.
Manual focusing can be very enjoyable. This certainly depends on application but personally I enjoy working with fully manual lenses a lot more than with any AF lens and I would choose a good manual focus lens over an AF lens (almost) any time. Check out our manual photographers series to read other photographers stories who feel similar about this."

His cons are:

"You have to do everything yourself. You have to think about the aperture and set it manually. You have to focus manually. Some people don’t enjoy the process at all. Other people like me prefer this process over using AF.
Manual focus is often slower than AF. After some practice you will find that you can capture a lot more scenes with manual lenses than you thought. But you will miss some pictures you could have captured with the very good AF of most modern cameras.
If you adapt lenses exif information will be incomplete and the camera can’t correct lens defects like distortion, vignetting or lateral chromatic aberrations (CA). While lateral CA can be corrected automatically by a raw-converter like Ligthroom you need to correct distortion and vignetting manually. I wouldn’t recommend using JPG if you use manual lenses.
Image stabilizers are handy but manual lenses don’t have them. If you use a Sony a7/a7s/a7r you have to carry a tripod more often and achieving focus with longer lenses is a bit harder. Newer Sony cameras like the Sony a7ii or a7rii feature an integrated image stabilizer which works with manual lenses! You need to tell the camera your focal length though which costs 2 or 3 seconds.
Older lens coatings are less efficient this means that many lenses have lower contrast when you have a bright light source in your image. But there is a big variation between manufacturers and age."

Source: Beginners Guide to using Manual Lenses on the Sony a7 - phillipreeve.net

[stevebrot]

And this leads to REVIEWS like this ! The A7 Has spoken !
SMC Pentax-A 35mm F2 Reviews - A Prime Lenses - Pentax Lens Reviews & Lens Database

The famous @Lens_tester, who left a single cryptic post and a flurry of (mostly negative) cryptic reviews Spring of 2018.


Steve

[ChristianRock]

The famous @Lens_tester, who left a single cryptic post and a flurry of (mostly negative) cryptic reviews Spring of 2018.


Steve

Yes that was the type of review I was thinking about when I brought this up... the lens_tester was culprit #1 indeed. I also remember the user "osv", the (in)famous Sony apologist, to whom Sony could do no wrong, and Pentax was incapable of doing anything right... and he did some lens reviews as well, but I think he left most of his poison for his blog/website... and I think there have been others.

The point is, even some nice and fair users here (that's you, my friends who are participating in this thread ) have stated in the past that lenses that perform better on the K-1 than on their A-7xyz cameras. I've seen it more than once, and I'd dig up the posts but I have a meeting coming up in one minute

[BigMackCam]

Yes that was the type of review I was thinking about when I brought this up... the lens_tester was culprit #1 indeed. I also remember the user "osv", the (in)famous Sony apologist, to whom Sony could do no wrong, and Pentax was incapable of doing anything right... and he did some lens reviews as well, but I think he left most of his poison for his blog/website... and I think there have been others.

The point is, even some nice and fair users here (that's you, my friends who are participating in this thread ) have stated in the past that lenses that perform better on the K-1 than on their A-7xyz cameras. I've seen it more than once, and I'd dig up the posts but I have a meeting coming up in one minute

Since I'm both a Pentax and Sony user, I certainly don't want to come across as a Sony apologist... I think you folks know me better than that anyway; I hope I can say I have pretty balanced and unbiased views regardless of brand.

That established, Lens Tester's review was based on a 42MP Sony camera. In addition to any lack of reliable information on his testing methods, there's the additional resolution to bear in mind here, and therefore the increased magnification of images viewed at 100% reproduction. Even if his testing was methodically perfect, a 42MP sensor is going to be highly unforgiving of any lens - even more so than the 36MP sensor in the K-1 / K-1II. I can't say whether this is a significant factor in his assessment of the lens, but it's a consideration...

[Lowell Goudge]

i wont claim to have read even a fraction of the posts, but there are for me several reasons to use legacy lenses even though i have AF covered with lenses from 10mm through 400mm, and the range from 28-200mm is at F2.8.
- as some have pointed out, there are some great 50/1.4 lenses out there at a relatively good price, but this can extend across the whole range of focal lengths, there are some really good and inexpensive legacy lenses available
- i have some lenses that cannot be easily replaced, such as my 300/4 coupled with my SMC AF 1.7x converter, for a 500mm range limited AF lens that weighs about 1 kilo,, or my tamron 200-500/5.6 zoom. any 500mm F5.6 lens in AF is thousands of dollars!
- lastly THEY ARE FUN TO USE and when i am on my own time, i like to slow down and legacy lenses even with alkl their faults, and quirks, are a pleasure to use. i shoot them just for that purpose

[Apet-Sure]

I have no qualms about hanging from my legs over a stream to get the right shot.

This is not my creation. I found it online - https://blog.thecamerastore.com/safety-third-instagram-photo-contest/

[Astro-Baby]

Steve...I had asimilar experience at the top of a mountain in Greece. I was banging away with my happy snappy Lumix ( because it was a gruelling 13 hour walk and frankly I had enough to carry without lugging a 35mm and a box of lenses) and up strolls some guy who deove most of the way missing all the epic scenery and stands to taking pics with his top end Canon while telling me how you simply cant get good pics with a happy snappy. I asked him to take some pics of me using my snap o matic which he did. Not a single pic he took includes my feet, on one lf them he cut my head off most dont have the horizon straight and the composition could have been improved on by someone who was blind.

There were some dreadful lenses though from the old days but looking back I had some great results from a cheapie Fujica 605 and going back further some of my best shots were with a Zenith E.

I think much would depend on what glass is being used by the OP amd whether the OP is just too used to the camera doing the work. Thats actually why I went back to film and legacy glass. When its bad its really really bad but when its good its awesome.

[Ronald Oakes]

Steve...I had asimilar experience at the top of a mountain in Greece. I was banging away with my happy snappy Lumix ( because it was a gruelling 13 hour walk and frankly I had enough to carry without lugging a 35mm and a box of lenses) and up strolls some guy who deove most of the way missing all the epic scenery and stands to taking pics with his top end Canon while telling me how you simply cant get good pics with a happy snappy. I asked him to take some pics of me using my snap o matic which he did. Not a single pic he took includes my feet, on one lf them he cut my head off most dont have the horizon straight and the composition could have been improved on by someone who was blind.

There were some dreadful lenses though from the old days but looking back I had some great results from a cheapie Fujica 605 and going back further some of my best shots were with a Zenith E.

I think much would depend on what glass is being used by the OP amd whether the OP is just too used to the camera doing the work. Thats actually why I went back to film and legacy glass. When its bad its really really bad but when its good its awesome.

I find it amusing reading stories like this.....lol
I happen to absolutely Love my Lumix G3 until I sold it and the Kit lens to the Pawnshop not 15 minutes ago....Have to make way for my New OM-D EM-10ii being delivered today by Amazon in a few hours !
It doesn't replace my KP however , but it has its place in the stable with 2 adapters for M42 and K mount with aperture ring.
I still get all the benefit of all my Pentax Vintage Glass if needed , in a tiny compact and light format that fits into my jacket pocket.