[othar]

I don't own it (I guess there are not that much around either) but wouldn't the most infamous lens be the SMC Pentas-AF 35-70mm f2.8 lens.
I mean, it basically killed Pentax's first AF system on it's own

[zjacreman]

SMC Pentax-FA 28-80mm F3.5-5.6

I bet the Takumar-F one is worse! Practically a soft-focus lens wide open. But not on purpose.

[FozzFoster]

It took the photo I won a gold key for in the Scholastic Art Awards.

Well done! It goes to show that story-telling, mood, composition, perspective, etc. is so much more important that the clinical preciseness of a lens

[TwoUptons]

I’ve had some lenses I didn’t like, but they seem to more often be turkeys in certain use cases and not so much in others.

I had the Takumar bayonet 135mm f2.5 and hated its tendency to flare when shooting basketball.

My FA 100-300 was also awful at 300mm, but it was OK elsewhere.

I liked my M200 f4 so much I bought the A to get flash capability.

And I’ve had several 28-80s that were painful to use on manual focus cameras, but optically they’re OK on autofocus cameras with 400 speed film...

The 35-70 f2.8 is an ergonomic nightmare, but optically it’s very good.

And I don’t see how anyone can say anything bad about the DA40 outside of manual focusing.

-Eric

[Paul the Sunman]

The worst lens in my opinion is the 40mm Ltd.

For many reasons, not just IQ, the DA 40 Limited is amongst my very favourite lenses. I am looking forward to it getting plenty of use on the K3iii.

[AfterPentax Mark II]

oof that one hits me in the feelers haha I just bought the 40 Ltd and really enjoy it! Do you have the smc or the HD version?
My HD version is sharp and characterful...

I have the old SMC version. And it is of course very subjective, most people here like that lens, but to be honest I am not a fan of the Ltd's series except for the 20-40mm, which a completely new design and the other Ltd's are based on old designs. I have a 20-40mm and put it on my just acquired KP and it gives me the WOW effect, that others here describe when they use any of the other Ltd's.

[Sidney Porter]

I am going with the first generation 18-55 kit lens. At the time it was a really important lens giving the expected field of view on an apsc. At least my copy is really soft. I ended up using a promaster 28-70 (24?-80?), from the zx-10 as my standard lens rather than the 18-55, on my k100d. I have a later version of the 18-55 dal wr which is perfectly acceptable.

Maybe my original copy was just bad. But when I think of the importance of getting it right and they got it wrong I vote for that as the worst lens

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Last edited by Sidney Porter; 04-21-2021 at 02:22 PM.

[TwoUptons]

The 18-55 I got with my K10 was decent, but the slow aperture did it no favors in anything other than bright light. The 16-50 was a revelation in comparison, though I know it doesn’t get much love here.

The 28-200 I has was pretty terrible. Soft and distorted at the wide end, soft at the long end, and pretty bad in general below f8. Maybe as a 35-150 f8 it was pretty good

-Eric

[ZombieArmy]

I don't how the M200 (which I don't have) compares to the Takumar 200 f4 (which I have) but I like my Takumar (sure there are sharper modern lenses etc but I like its rendering and its nice to use).

While I haven't tested the tak 200 f4 in my experience the K/Tak variants tend to outperform the M lenses, and I'm really not a fan of the M series as a whole except for a few exceptions. But then again I haven't tried the whole M series either.

My favorite M lenses that I've tried are my exceptional 50 1.7 copy and my 75-150 f4.

[Rondec]

The worst one I have used was the FA-J 28-80. It just had really poor contrast, was soft throughout the range and really never seemed to sharpen up. The only thing that made that lens seem good was that I was shooting an old Sigma 70-300 macro lens that was truly awful. Muddy colors, terrible contrast and flared like crazy. Made me want to shoot my FA-J all the time till I got better glass.

[AfterPentax Mark II]

I am going with the first generation 18-55 kit lens. At the time it was a really important lens giving the expected field of view on an apsc. At least my copy is really soft. I ended up using a promaster 28-70 (24?-80?), from the zx-10 as my standard lens rather than the 18-55, on my k100d. I have a later version of the 18-55 dal wr which is perfectly acceptable.

Maybe my original copy was just bad. But when I think of the importance of getting it right and they got it wrong I vote for that as the worst lens

The first generation kit lens I have is actually the Samsung version and it gave better results than the Pentax version. It is not a rebadged version, it had different coatings and has the Schneider-Kreuznach name on it. I enjoyed that lens very much on the Samsung GX-10. (oops this is out of this threads scope)

[Parallax]

Any of the FA J lenses were off too.

I only had one of them. I don't remember which one. ( a zoom). It was, well, I'll be charitable and call it "less than stellar".

Then there were the Q "toy lenses". I have nothing to back this up, but I thought at the time (and still do) that they manged to produce some lenses that were so bad that the only way they could hope to sell any was to tout the defects as a feature.

[FozzFoster]

I only had one of them. I don't remember which one. ( a zoom). It was, well, I'll be charitable and call it "less than stellar".

I've had two of em.. a wide zoom and a tele zoom. I think all FAJ were zooms and there must have only been a few types made..
I'm glad they didn't continue this line of 'value' lenses... :P

[Lord Lucan]

The silver FA 100-300 f/4.7-5.8. Cheap-o plastic mount, loosey-goosey barrel, sloppy focus, wobbly zoom, & everything. Images softer than meringue. Oh, but at least it provides pretty purple fringe coloration if you like that sort of thing.Maybe I got a defective unit.

I think you got a defective unit. I got one (very cheaply) and I agree it is plasticky, but I find it very sharp with no CA, as have most other PF reviewers. It is a wolf in sheeps clothing :-
SMC Pentax-FA 100-300mm F4.7-5.8 Reviews - FA Zoom Lenses - Pentax Lens Reviews & Lens Database

[boriscleto]

Well done! It goes to show that story-telling, mood, composition, perspective, etc. is so much more important that the clinical preciseness of a lens

Well the amount of time I spent on the print in the darkroom had as much to do with the mood as the lens