[Canada_Rockies]

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Spider Web in the Morning Light

Pentax K-1 mII Ltd Silver, M*300f4

Nice image, jc

[Gary H Perth]

That picture sums up, I think, why I was so pleasantly surprised with the M 200. We all know it's not the sharpest lens Pentax ever made, it was one of the few that got its optical design philosophy changed for the A version, to try to "fix" it.
But it makes the subjects look beautiful, and the colors it captures are to die for.

Agreed, the M 200mm has the most incredible colour, matched with very-good sharpness.

[Jonathan Mac]

M 50mm f/1.7


Berries by Jonathan MacDonald, on Flickr


Rose by Jonathan MacDonald, on Flickr

[jcdoss]

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Blue Angels @ Kansas City Airshow, 2019
K-1 mII, M400f5.6

[Canada_Rockies]

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Blue Angels @ Kansas City Airshow, 2019
K-1 mII, M400f5.6

And some say you cannot get birds in flight with old manual lenses ....

[paulh]

Exiting Horseshoe Trails - I was the last to leave that evening. SMC-M28/3.5 on *ist D:

[jcdoss]

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Graveyard Gazebo
These times have caused some to ponder life and mortality.
Pentax K-1 mII, M20f4

[jcdoss]

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Not a Morning Dog
As they say, let sleeping dogs lie.
Pentax K-1 mII, M28f2

[jcdoss]

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Water Wheel in Sepia
Arkansas House, Jasper, Arkansas
Pentax K-1 mII, M28f3.5

[jcdoss]

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Health & Fitness
Scenes from a used book store.
Pentax K-1 mII, M35f2

[iheiramo]

So this is it. End of an era. 3 years, 17 M primes and 34 months of daily shooting. When I started my single in challenge project my plan was to learn the lenses I had and hopefully improve as a photographer. After few months I decided that this was fun and, as I already had quite many M primes, made plans to get them all to learn about differences between lenses in one series. In the end I left out three due to price, rarity and my need for those lenses. I have seen one M20 on sale in Finland, but missed the chance with couple of hours. Honestly tried to get it M400 was on sale before I started this project, but haven't seen it since and as I'm not into birding I didn't want to invest to it. M28/2 still haven't surfaced for sale in Finland during the time I've been interested in vintage lenses. I did get some lenses from outside, but didn't feel the need to go after those three. I did learn a lot during these 3 years. I understand my lense much better. I have better grasp of behavior of different focal lengths. I learned a lot about pp. At first going thru a month was a stuggle. Now it's pretty easy. I'm confident that I can pull out a shot fast when I don't have time search for the shot. I also have better understanding of creating lighting to shoot static objects. Luckily there a still lot to learn, so something to look forward.

M series is not most high... to be honest it's considered the weakest series in Pentax catalogue, but it also make's it the cheapest. That was the reason why my first manual lenses, M50/1.7 and M100/2.8, were from M series. I soon started to gather more, as I was impressed by IQ and rendering they gave. Bang for the buck. It felt real important at that point of my shooting career. There are some really good lenses, some that has some special character and some weaker ones, but SIC has shown that one can take real good shots even with weakest and cheapest M series prime. For internet use all of them are perfectly usable, if you stay in their comfort zone. Still I have my favorites now and doubt that others won't see much action from me in the future. I'm not sure yet if I should keep all of them. The one's I'm willing to let go won't yield much money, so don't know if worth the trouble

Time to turn my melancholic feelings towards the lens of the month. M28/2.8 was a bit of a surprice. My conclusion from APSC round was to keep this lens for starbursts and good PF handling. M35/2 was my go to lens with cropped body and it was a little too close in focal length to find much use. Feels like tables have turned in FF world. June was constant stuggle with M35/2 being too wide and not wide enough. FOV from 28mm on the other hand felt very natural thru the month.

M28/2.8 focus close and infinity focus ain't faraway. A lot of general landscape shooting goes with lens focused to infinity. Real easy to snap away. For landscapes it's good to stop down to get sharp corners, but when shooting something closer lens works fine wide open. Just keep the target in center, as there is serious vignetting and corners are weak. Fringing is still well in control. In this regard I think it's the best in series. At least among the lenses I have. It's also flare resistant. You have to push the lens to extreme to get a small flare. I didn't need to clean any out of my shots this month. Sharpness in overall is good enough. Not in the level of fifties, but nothing to complain about. There are distortations, but in the level that I can live with.

Colors were strong. Clearly stronger than with the lenses from previous months, if that is important. When shooting RAW they are easy to make what you want in pp, that I don't usually pay much attention to them.

There's often comparison between M28/2.8 and 3.5. I think I prefer 2.8 of the two. There are advantages in highlight rendering, PF and flare that make faster 28 more usable for me. 3.5 could be sharper and have some colors better, but the difference ain't big enough to turn my scale in its favor.

So September I take off from daily shooting. I have some reviews to write. I'll rejoin SIC later, as I have some lenses on table, including two M zooms, waiting to be shot. And I won't abandon my M's. I'll be back

Wide open:




f5.6:


f8:




f11:

[Canada_Rockies]

So this is it. End of an era. 3 years, 17 M primes and 34 months of daily shooting. When I started my single in challenge project my plan was to learn the lenses I had and hopefully improve as a photographer. After few months I decided that this was fun and, as I already had quite many M primes, made plans to get them all to learn about differences between lenses in one series.<SNIP>

I have thoroughly enjoyed your M challenges. Thank you so much for an honest, user friendly set of reviews. I've never particularly enjoyed the fancy technical reviews with lines per mm, etc. compared to the user reviews such as you have so brilliantly done over the last 34 months!

[iheiramo]

I have thoroughly enjoyed your M challenges. Thank you so much for an honest, user friendly set of reviews. I've never particularly enjoyed the fancy technical reviews with lines per mm, etc. compared to the user reviews such as you have so brilliantly done over the last 34 months!

Thanks. I try to squeesh out some conclusions of my experience and write reviews of them all in PF lens reviews. I decided to wait till the end before I write anything there. I guess I need to dig out all my wrap ups from M club.

[jcdoss]

So this is it. End of an era. 3 years, 17 M primes and 34 months of daily shooting.

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Awesome writeup, Ismo! As an smc-M afficionado myself, I agree with your statements. Some of mine are not spectacular, but those are the cheapest of the bunch and selling wouldn't be worth the time and hassle. Then again, many share the identical optical formulas with their later smc-A counterparts, and I don't detect the same judgement against that series. The patience and diligence you demonstrated in completing this series for SIC deserves a round of applause!

[iheiramo]

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Awesome writeup, Ismo! As an smc-M afficionado myself, I agree with your statements. Some of mine are not spectacular, but those are the cheapest of the bunch and selling wouldn't be worth the time and hassle. Then again, many share the identical optical formulas with their later smc-A counterparts, and I don't detect the same judgement against that series. The patience and diligence you demonstrated in completing this series for SIC deserves a round of applause!

Thanks. It's not about the goal, but the journey. I have enjoyed enormously of my months in the challenge. It's the kind of thing that keeps me motivated to grap my camera and go out while home. When in travel you have plenty to shoot and more images than you need, but without challenge I would shoot a lot less.