When I first saw this thread my thoughts went to my Tamron Adaptall-2 02B 28/2.5 It has been sitting on a shelf in the closet for about a year. What a sad story!
This was once my favorite lens and almost never left my camera. It was purchased new in 1982 for landscape photography on 35mm film and was used for hundreds, if not thousands of shots of mountains, lakes, rivers, oceans, valleys, and so on. What a great landscape performer...fast aperture, rectilinear, great resolution and contrast, and resistant to flare. In addition it is compact for a 28mm and relatively light considering its mostly metal construction (rubberized focus ring).
So, you might ask, what happened to sour such a great relationship? The separation began with the switch to digital and the K10D's APS-C sensor. I had high anticipation when I first mounted the Tammy 28, but it did not take long to realize that my once prized landscape lens was now the equivalent of a shortish normal lens. In addition, the PK/A adaptall-2 mount was a pain in the rear to use due to poor registration with the camera's electrical contacts.
Previously unnoticed flaws also surfaced. When used in its new role as a short normal, the lens exhibited a disturbing tendency to blowout bright colors of close subjects. Its previously adequate 5-blade iris also proved to generate some very disturbing bokeh when the depth of field was limited and the background was busy. Clearly this champion of the great outdoors was not adjusting well to its new role!
Enter a newly acquired Pentax-FA 35/2 and its doom was sealed. That is until I spotted this new thread. Ahhhh...here is my chance to take an old friend out for a little fresh air and sunlight. Well, here are the results...all selected to minimize the fault of my old friend.
Thanks for giving me a chance to laud the good work of an old friend.
Steve
P.S.
I have got to STOP photographing flowers! Surely, there must be something else in the world that I can work with?