[paulh]

300/2.8 (360B) + AFA 1.7x (x-posted in the 300mm thread)

Outstanding work in this thread as usual!

[luftfluss]

80-200/2.8 30A @ 200mm (x-posted in the 200mm thread)

[marcusBMG]

A very nice 28A arrived this morning, complete with case and the bayonet rubber hood. And it was a perfect day to take some pics. K3-ii, middling f's.


28mm


~100mm


Close focus mode, ~ 35mm


The wild goats caused some serious mayhem in town during the winter, back to their usual haunts now.


The Marine Drive snakes around the Great Orme and is one of my regular bike rides. The properties on the coast are one of Wales' "millionaire miles"

[Parry Johnson]

A very nice 28A arrived this morning, complete with case and the bayonet rubber hood. And it was a perfect day to take some pics. K3-ii, middling f's.


28mm


~100mm


Close focus mode, ~ 35mm


The wild goats caused some serious mayhem in town during the winter, back to their usual haunts now.


The Marine Drive snakes around the Great Orme and is one of my regular bike rides. The properties on the coast are one of Wales' "millionaire miles"

Very nice! I almost took the plunge and bought one of these yesterday in a local online auction. However, it was a bit overpriced as I would have had to buy an SPII, 200 f4 Tak (which I would have kept) and Nikon film (F60) and digital (D60) cameras (which I would have re-sold). However, as I was considering it, someone else beat me to the punch. That SPII, by the way, was a black body.


Nevertheless, maybe the buyer will try to resell it, and I'll get another chance!

[luftfluss]

A very nice 28A arrived this morning, complete with case and the bayonet rubber hood. And it was a perfect day to take some pics. K3-ii, middling f's.


28mm


~100mm


Close focus mode, ~ 35mm


The wild goats caused some serious mayhem in town during the winter, back to their usual haunts now.


The Marine Drive snakes around the Great Orme and is one of my regular bike rides. The properties on the coast are one of Wales' "millionaire miles"

Very nice work with that lens!

[MSL]

I don't have a lot of opportunities to take pictures these days, so I'm curious to any collected wisdom the viewers of this thread might offer.

Years ago, when LBA was incurable, I bought two Adaptall lenses, the 103A (80-210) and 58A(70-210). I also managed to get two adapters - a PK/A and P/U (m42). The PK/A was a little flaky and the 58A's only feature was it's size, but it couldn't compete with my Pentax A70-210/4. So I sold the 58A as a lens cap for the adapter, and the 103A has largely been unused since the m42 adapter was somewhat awkward.

I managed to find a 40A (35-135) with a PK/A that seems to be in excellent shape for a great price. It is a bit of a weird focal range for APS-C, but I'm curious to see how this lens performs. There are far fewer posts here on the 40A than the 103A, but they all seem to be quite positive about the lens.

So I'm open to suggestions on which lens to try out first, things that I might want to consider when testing it out, whether either needs a hood or easily flares etc. Eventually I'll play with both, but I don't know how often I want to swap the adapter back and forth since I know they can be a little fragile.

Any and all thoughts welcome. Thanks.

[fuzzyphoton]

hi .. i am a big fan of the 40a ... it is my favorite walking-around lens. ..... i think the trick is not to think of it as the " toy " lens it might lead you to believe from it's cuteness. take a few pics off a tripod to impress yourself with what the 40a can do if you have the faith.

outdoors, be sure to use a serious lens hood. most of my AD2 can lose contrast from renegade sunlight.

an interesting thing is that you can slide the little macro button to in-between ON and OFF ... to get a wider range of close-focus. although i do prefer to just pop on some extension rings if i want to go up close... with most of my AD2 ..

just some thoughts.

[MSL]

an interesting thing is that you can slide the little macro button to in-between ON and OFF ... to get a wider range of close-focus. although i do prefer to just pop on some extension rings if i want to go up close... with most of my AD2 ..

I had noticed this already and wondered about how I might use it. I also have a Pentax A35-105, where you can access the close focus mode at any focal length and then use the zoom to also adjust focusing, so this aspect of the 40A didn't throw me completely even if it doesn't work quite the same

outdoors, be sure to use a serious lens hood. most of my AD2 can lose contrast from renegade sunlight.

Any suggestions on shape or size (length) of hood since it does cover almost a 4x zoom range?

[MSL]

i am a big fan of the 40a ... it is my favorite walking-around lens. ..... i think the trick is not to think of it as the " toy " lens it might lead you to believe from it's cuteness. take a few pics off a tripod to impress yourself with what the 40a can do if you have the faith.

I took it out for a short walk. No great images because the cold temperature made it hard to want to stand still for any length of time. But I'm impressed. The lens seems stupidly sharp even at f3.5. Colors also seem to be spot on accurate. I'm not sure the PK/A adapter is going to ever make it over to the 103A.

[Uponnothing]

I had noticed this already and wondered about how I might use it. I also have a Pentax A35-105, where you can access the close focus mode at any focal length and then use the zoom to also adjust focusing, so this aspect of the 40A didn't throw me completely even if it doesn't work quite the same



Any suggestions on shape or size (length) of hood since it does cover almost a 4x zoom range?

I have the original lens hood for the 40A (79FH) and it is 3cm long and diameter is 85cm, it is fully round, not petal shaped.

[fuzzyphoton]

i have those embarrassingly ugly chinese rubber lens hoods for all my lenses ... they are floppy and best of all cheap. they flare out a little so usually won't " vignette " your pic.

on the good side, you have a 50 per cent chance of survival if you drop a lens ... also, on some lenses, they work better if you pop out the little metal filter thread adapter and just stretch the hood over the lens barrel ...

*****************
on the 103a ( yep, $8 ) ... it is maybe a philosophical thing ... if you are doing hand-held with panic breath and the wind is blowing the perched hooded warbler around ... the 103a pics look about like my 19AH or even my gift-from-god 30a .... ... the 103a can certainly give you " happy " pictures ...

but if you happen to be blessed with one of those " once every three days " conditions/subject/location .... why wouldn't you just as well have a nice 23a ( 60-300mm ) ... if a 30a is $240, the 23a should be $165 ... but being still a bit of a secret weapon, you can still find them for $20-40 ...other than kinda heavy ( 300mm ! ) ... they have a well-balanced goodness about them, a wanting to please, like a friendly puppy dog ...

while i am rambling, i might mention i have about 3 dozen AD2 lenses .. but i use the 23a 50% of the time ... 01a 25% , 40a 15%, and the killer 30a about 9 % ...

hope this helps.

[Richard & Sheila]

[dadipentak]

Pentax K30 with Tamron SP 90mm f/2.5

ummmm...WOW!

[moggi1964]

I just bought one of those lenses. I hope it performs as well as yours though there's a fair amount of skill involved in getting such a lovely shot so I'll settle for almost as good as yours

[luftfluss]

Female bufflehead, adorable tiny duck.

One the one hand, these are the best yet I've managed. OTOH, these are still extremely heavy crops, as she stayed 30-40 yards away from me.

Tamron 400/4 65B + 140 TC (X-posted in the 300mm lens club)