Senior Member Join Date: Mar 2010 Location: Texas |
Fikkser,
Fikkser-I have the auto, super, and SMC versions of the 55 1.8. My auto is just like yours, the aperture ring turning the opposite direction. It's a more difficult way of operation for me, especially off the camera, but not to clumsy when the lens is mounted on the camera. All three of my 55s color a photo differently. All 3 are very good. For my taste, I like the auto best, the ST next, and the SMC 3rd. The auto 55 will do a few things none of my other lenses will. I like it's sharpness and color and transparency! Someone described the smoky shadows that this lens seems to get. I know what they mean after using the lens. I love that look, at least as a starting point out of the camera. My only post from that lens was downloaded and edited on an uncalibrated discolored old laptop, so it didn't turn out right at all. I was horrified when I later saw that post on my "photo" computer. Maybe I'll re-edit and re-post those images. I don't like the idea of leaving images that look unlike what were intended to show off the good qualities of a particular lens.
I just started shooting the ST 35 3.5, my lens number 1450462. It's mint and a little jewel to look at and operate. I just looked back at a recent series of shots I made that, unintentionally, work to compare the M 28 2.8 version 1 and the ST 35 3.5. I happened to have only these two lenses with me for a short while. At first viewing, I confused which shots came from which lens. I have the same impression now at second look, both lenses showing very very similar colors and sharpness. That really surprises me. The M 28 tends toward lower contrast and a more transparent but sharp look in comparison to other Ms, and I liked that from the first day I started shooting with it. I didn't know I'd be finding that quality in spades from early Takumar lenses. Some people don't like that look though, just seeing bland pictures. It's an advantageous characteristic to me since we can process, even batch process a whole lump of photos now at the computer. The ST 35 makes an even more harmonious picture than the 28 having very smooth well controlled contrast or tonalities setting up just right for a little Post P. Additionally, it's lack of distortion and narrower field of view combined with tonal smoothness results in a more discilined looking image than the M 28. So, I'd say it's a fine lens bordering on perfection for what it is. I'm looking forward to using it on FF someday. The 35 takes a surprisingly good portrait (others have noted this as well), and "close ups" on flowers and other objects at 3.5 can be quite beautiful. It might be a bit of a slow lens, but other than that, it's a great all arounder!
I've never shot a 24, never even seen one, but I sure would like to try one.
Dartmoor and Tim60,
I'm happy that you both mention the 20 4.5 positively. The only ultra wide angle lenses I've used are the DA star 16-50, briefly, and a Canon 10-22, a fairly acclaimed lens, that one going up to the top of Kilimanjaro with me. I got some nice looking shots with both those lenses, but I wish I'd had the Tak 20 on the mountain. I would have captured the climb in a more beautiful way. Having now just looked back through hundreds of shots from the 20, many taken recently, all mixed in with pictures from a dozen other lenses, the photos from the 20 stand out well. I think the 20 makes the most gorgeous looking pictures of any lens I have. Many of them just look sumptuous in color. The deep natural looking colors it gets are in their own class. The lens seems to find the beauty in all things-skys, clouds, and grass, trees, rocks, water, shadow, various phases of sunlight. It's quite sharp enough. I notice that if you zoom far in, you'll see a little ca-pf sometimes, but on a big screen, you realize that it's not relevent-it's for all practical purposes unseeable, does not detract from sharpness, and printing fairly big is an option. The other wides I mentioned get as much and more ca. The Tak is a sharp lens-I already said that-and one of the sharpest in the center if not the sharpest in the center I've ever used. Great for close ups wide open. Very good so called bokeh. Agreed. it's not flattering at all for a typical portrait (more like ugliness results), but full body shots in the right setting and done creatively can be stunning. The bottom line on the 20 is that it works brilliantly as a picture maker! Even the distortion for city shots is usually not a detraction. Filters work well on the lens. Mechanically, it's a gem of course. The photos I've seen posted from a FF camera have looked quite good, even better than on aps-c? From the first day I found one, I liked the way it took photos, but, I was very new to photography, new to MF lenses, and I unfortunately read some reviews and came upon comments that made me distrust my eyes! I kept thinking I just had to get another wide and probably shouldn't be using the 20 since I'd be wasting my time! I laugh a little about that now. I have a feeling that it's got to be the most underrated and most "un-tested" Takumar-Pentax lens of them all. I wonder, what if it's one of the best of them all?
To grind on about the 20 a little more, and I've wanted to do this for years, I think I might have been the first at this club to RISK posting a good number of somewhat representative shots from the 20. That was 3 or 4 years ago I think. I thought the 20 accounted for itself well, but I remember eliciting only a single comment on a picture of a fountain. I assumed that because wide angles are so expensive, their would be more interest in this "cheap" Tak seeing that it could truly be frame sharp, capture mood and handle light so beautifully. Perhaps the lens is not more attractive to folks because for what the Tak 20 costs, spending more money on another wide makes better sense, avoiding the Tak distortion and that so called "softness." But, I see now, even if that's all somewhat true-and certainly the lens does have it's share of distortion, and certainly there are sharper corner to corner wides out there-the Tak 20 has it's own superlative qualities that make it well worth acquiring, even compared to other supposedly better wides. So, for me, when and if I get a Zeiss 21, I'll be keeping my Tak 20, because it will make photos that are just as beautiful if not more beautiful than most other lenses.
On that 28 3.5 ST 58 degree filter thread model, I've got one in mint condition, the one going to f22. It's a bit of a misunderstood lens I think. It's unique for sure, not like the later ST 28s. Anyhow, I like the pictures it gives just the way they come out of the camera, though, if I compare them side by side to photos from other 28s, I start to be a little dissatisfied. It's colors are really nice, very vibrant, blacks are really nice like a lot of old Tak lenses, and things look very sharp, but sort of granular, gritty, maybe stacatto like texturally. This look is great sometimes, fantastic for B and W, but not for every picture! The look gets a little wearisome. So what is going on to produce this lack of smoothness? To make the lens "behave" normally, I did some experimental post processing alongside the M 28 3.5, a lens that has a very good reputation as one of the best Pentax 28s. I think there is a little similarity to start off with between these two lenses, something textural, minimal distortion as well, although the color cast, temperature of the two are far apart. So, I found out that a little adjustment in Light Room (I use LR 1 point something) brings the ST 28 3.5 vs. 1 images to an almost exact replicacation of the M 28 3.5 images. These adjustments I'll mention apply to a Jpeg edit from K 20D set to Natural at 5200K with contrast -4 and the other 3 parameters at 0. Adjusting the ST 28 image, you boost the Black if there is room to do so, perhaps from 0 to 3 or 4, maybe 5 (usually, the ST, in comparison to the M won't stack up in the shadows and can stand more contrast as it often leaves room on the left side of the histogram for that), slide the Clarity from 0 to 10 or so, desaturate the red channel by 3 or so if there are random red objects in the photo. Then warm up the ST-away from blue to yellow a few degrees to match the M, and then decrease the magenta cast of the M about 3 or so toward green. There it is! You'll get almost exact replica images, even zoomed in. Any settings you decide you like, obviously, can be used while batch editing. So this Tak 28 is a very useable lens with a lot of admirable possibilities. A different in camera JPEG setting or importing a RAW file for editing would change the parameters as well as use of another piece of editing software, but, the above description gives a relative picture of what's happening with the ST 28 and should give a sort of guideline to it's characteristic image qualities. It also gives you a better sense about older lenses and editing in general. Some of those old lenses can make a picture look a bit staccato like because colors can be so vibrant and jump out of the picture inharmoniously-and not just reds...have to do your own looking. The ST is sharp, probably just as sharp as the M corner to corner, and to my eye, I like it better than the later Tak 28s. It just needs that clarity slider adjustment to bring out what I think most folks call local contrast. This is obviously only if you desire a similar look of smoothness and sharpness compared to a later SMC or SMC M coated lens that have that local contrast already. My other old lenses don't seem to need local contrast adjustment like this 28, although, increasing the blacks or expanding contrast a little is needed fairly often with all of them.
Some of this stuff I've written probably belongs in the lens review section or the post processing forum or whatever. Forgive me for such a long message. But, I felt compelled to respond to the posts immediately above. I haven't had time or inclination to write a detailed review of some of these lenses although they deserve it. Anybody with better insight into all of these issues and lenses can clean up or correct my lengthy post or lobby for it to be removed!
Last edited by mglowe; 10-05-2014 at 09:53 AM.
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Originally posted by fikkser 
Post #17287 by Minimonster
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