[5r82]

Great photos, thanks for posting. Something new can be learned from you.
With your advanced skills you used 28-105 successfully because you're a master.
Master doesn't lack any equipment. He is not after shiny new toys.
If I have to take only one lens with me that is D FA 28-105.
It's pretty good for almost anything at all f-stops.
It could be my only lens without doubt for my style of photography.

[MrB1]

The D-FA 28-105 is fine for me as a one-lens kit with my KP, as I rarely do wide-angle. Its edge-to-edge image quality is great on APS-C, as it is cropping the central 2/3 of the already excellent full-frame image. On the few occasions I do want a wider shot, I'm happy to stitch a few overlapping images in PP.

Philip

[Ken Lee]

Great photos, thanks for posting. Something new can be learned from you.
With your advanced skills you used 28-105 successfully because you're a master.
Master doesn't lack any equipment. He is not after shiny new toys.
If I have to take only one lens with me that is D FA 28-105.
It's pretty good for almost anything at all f-stops.
It could be my only lens without doubt for my style of photography.

Thanks for the kind words. I have been using this consistently for many months, and...well, as you can see by the photos I've posted on the past few months, it's a pretty sharp lens with really great image quality.

I post this for several reasons. One is that I love to try and turn people on to how great Pentax can be at every turn. But the other thing is that we are inundated with marketing, and especially if we are beginners, we think we have to have this super-expensive equipment to produce solid photos. And it's just not true. I bought this lens for $300 used, and it's utterly fantastic in a variety of settings. And I've been getting people responding, saying, "I really needed to hear this."

And of course, the other thing is just thinking about having a "walkabout" lens when you need to lighten the load. Traveling, hiking, whatever.

---------- Post added 06-25-22 at 08:50 AM ----------

The D-FA 28-105 is fine for me as a one-lens kit with my KP, as I rarely do wide-angle. Its edge-to-edge image quality is great on APS-C, as it is cropping the central 2/3 of the already excellent full-frame image. On the few occasions I do want a wider shot, I'm happy to stitch a few overlapping images in PP.

Philip

A lot of people regard it as a "kit lens". However, I feel like the lens is a surprisingly high-quality lens and an excellent walkabout lens that shows that we don't always need to use super-expensive lenses to achieve really solid results. Even with something more demanding such as night photography, where you really need sharpness and detail because, well, it's dark.

[MrB1]

QUOTE:
A lot of people regard it as a "kit lens". However, I feel like the lens is a surprisingly high-quality lens and an excellent walkabout lens that shows that we don't always need to use super-expensive lenses to achieve really solid results. Even with something more demanding such as night photography, where you really need sharpness and detail because, well, it's dark.


+1 Ken

Yes, for many types of walk-about photography, the wide apertures characteristic of the expensive lenses are not needed where f/5.6 to f/11 on the D-FA 28-105 will give high quality (aka really solid!) results.

Philip

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Last edited by MrB1; 06-25-2022 at 09:56 AM.

[Wheatridger]

That's an interesting geo-psychological theory! Since I haven't traveled much outside the US, I'll answer it with more theory. Tropical towns usually are painted in brighter colors. Along with the changing colors of the sea, you get a vivid, saturated effect. But is it nature, or a cultural preference for color? I've seen photos of the brightly painted houses in some Arctic towns, painted in preschool primary colors. The sun never beats straight down on those, as in the tropics. Instead, the summer twilight paints them in golden hour honeyed hues.

It seems to be the upper-middle latitudes that prefer drab. There's a cloudy belt from England to Boston to Chicago that seems to have the drabbest homes. I'm starting to think that your theory has merit

Oh, and yes, Arizona is that bright and saturated. These photos look like the view through sunglasses. In the Southwest, there's not enough moisture to scatter short blue wavelengths, so the skies are naturally polarized. It's a radically different contrast and tonal range than in the cloudy climes, with the opposite problems: too much contrast, too much light. I'm usually trying to tone things down.

---------- Post added 06-25-22 at 04:18 PM ----------

Thanks for the kind words. I have been using this consistently for many months, and...well, as you can see by the photos I've posted on the past few months, it's a pretty sharp lens with really great image quality.

I post this for several reasons. One is that I love to try and turn people on to how great Pentax can be at every turn. But the other thing is that we are inundated with marketing, and especially if we are beginners, we think we have to have this super-expensive equipment to produce solid photos. And it's just not true. I bought this lens for $300 used, and it's utterly fantastic in a variety of settings. And I've been getting people responding, saying, "I really needed to hear this."

And of course, the other thing is just thinking about having a "walkabout" lens when you need to lighten the load. Traveling, hiking, whatever.

---------- Post added 06-25-22 at 08:50 AM ----------



A lot of people regard it as a "kit lens". However, I feel like the lens is a surprisingly high-quality lens and an excellent walkabout lens that shows that we don't always need to use super-expensive lenses to achieve really solid results. Even with something more demanding such as night photography, where you really need sharpness and detail because, well, it's dark.

Back to the DFA 28-105, it's the one lens I can't do without. Everything else is a special purpose lens- wide or macro or long telephoto (I have no qualms about using this lens cropped to APSC dimensions (158 mm eq.). It doesn't have bad bokeh, but when I want (much) better, that's what the Limiteds are for.

[gaweidert]

It is my most used lens and if you are not interested in photographing the wildlife it would work fine as your only lens. On the K1 the ability to heavily crop the images you get from it is a great plus too. You can stitch images if you want an ultra wide angle view.


Two caveats. It does vignette wide open. When used on my K1 the shutter shock problem is really bad at certain shutter speeds. If I keep stay out of the shutter speed range from 1/60 to 1/250 second then the problem is much better on my K1. Shutter shock is almost non existent on my K1-II.

[Ken Lee]

It is my most used lens and if you are not interested in photographing the wildlife it would work fine as your only lens. On the K1 the ability to heavily crop the images you get from it is a great plus too. You can stitch images if you want an ultra wide angle view.


Two caveats. It does vignette wide open. When used on my K1 the shutter shock problem is really bad at certain shutter speeds. If I keep stay out of the shutter speed range from 1/60 to 1/250 second then the problem is much better on my K1. Shutter shock is almost non existent on my K1-II.

I'll hafta try and see what it looks like wide open. I don't shoot this particular lens wide open much. I usually am shooting with the 15-30mm f/2.8, and that vignetting is not too bad, and neither is the distortion in the corners. As for shutter shock, well, haha, I am so often shooting at 15 or 20 seconds or, even more often than that, 2-3 minutes, so I guess it doesn't matter!!!

Thankfully, too, vignetting is easily addressed in post.

---------- Post added 06-28-22 at 01:20 AM ----------

QUOTE:
A lot of people regard it as a "kit lens". However, I feel like the lens is a surprisingly high-quality lens and an excellent walkabout lens that shows that we don't always need to use super-expensive lenses to achieve really solid results. Even with something more demanding such as night photography, where you really need sharpness and detail because, well, it's dark.


+1 Ken

Yes, for many types of walk-about photography, the wide apertures characteristic of the expensive lenses are not needed where f/5.6 to f/11 on the D-FA 28-105 will give high quality (aka really solid!) results.

Philip

Yes, absolutely. I wouldn't use this for single-exposure Milky Way photos for a variety of reasons. Although....my friend has had very good luck photographing MWs with this lens and a K-1 using Astrotracer at around 100mm or so.

[Jonathan Mac]

From what I know of the 18-105mm I'd say "yes" though I would certainly take a fast fifty as well, for lower light and shallow depth of field. TBH I could happily shoot most things with just a 50mm.

Many folks would also want something a bit wider.

And the first shot in your original post is fantastic.

[Ken Lee]

From what I know of the 18-105mm I'd say "yes" though I would certainly take a fast fifty as well, for lower light and shallow depth of field. TBH I could happily shoot most things with just a 50mm.

Many folks would also want something a bit wider.

And the first shot in your original post is fantastic.

Oh, thanks!

I love 50mm, but I would struggle with that being my only lens on a trip, to be honest. I guess I'm so used to zooms.

I've challenged myself a few times to go on short trips with 50mm, but I really like the compression that zooms have, which have a very different feel from "moving your feet" with a 50mm. So my hats off to you. There's some other things I struggle with as well, including creating high-key images (almost the opposite of what I do, right? ) and other things. But I've been experimenting with some weirdly out-of-focus high-key stuff...or at least very bright background with odd silhouettes in the front, just to mix it up a bit. And a lot of that is either with a fixed 35mm lens or the 28-105mm.