[Rimfiredude]

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Buy the lens! I am still using a Q with 01, 02, and 06. My plan is a USED 08 will be next, then a NEW or USED Q7 or QS-1 next year when they come out with the new models. But I can always dream...a Q with a viewfinder.

Look what is going on here. http://www.ebay.com/itm/141668028460?_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2648&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT I wonder what it will finally go for.

[CWRailman]

My problem with the 08 is that unlike how the 15-45mm 06 picked up where the 5.0-15mm 02 left off, at 3.8-5.9mm the 08 has that overlap of the 02 lens. So in effect you are paying big money for not much more. Of course I will not dispute the improvement in IQ that the 08 has over the 02 but Pentax should have thought that out a bit more. Possibly a 2.2 or 2.4 to 5.0mm would have been a more provocative lens. If the 02 had been built to a higher standard I think it would have made the 08 virtually redundant. Personally for me, as it now exists, the 08 would end up being a waste of money. I would rather see a higher quality remake of the 02 with a constant 2.8 aperture like the 06.

[paulcote]

I would say keep the Q and get the lens if you want to spend the money. I can't tell the difference grabbing my Q-S1 vs my Q. I am sort of a beginner though.

[6BQ5]

My problem with the 08 is that unlike how the 15-45mm 06 picked up where the 5.0-15mm 02 left off, at 3.8-5.9mm the 08 has that overlap of the 02 lens. So in effect you are paying big money for not much more. Of course I will not dispute the improvement in IQ that the 08 has over the 02 but Pentax should have thought that out a bit more. Possibly a 2.2 or 2.4 to 5.0mm would have been a more provocative lens. If the 02 had been built to a higher standard I think it would have made the 08 virtually redundant. Personally for me, as it now exists, the 08 would end up being a waste of money. I would rather see a higher quality remake of the 02 with a constant 2.8 aperture like the 06.

It's better to have a bit of overlap than a gap ... so Ricoh did well to extend the 08 zoom to 5.9mm.

I'm not sure why/how you compare the 02 lens with the 08. They are completely different animals. At 3.8mm the lens performs like an 18mm on FF. That's really, really wide! Going wider than that will introduce a serious amount of distortion in the image. As an armchair expert, I agree that the 02 lens could probably be extended at the wide end but the lens will face new compromises. It may lose on the tele end. It may become very expensive. It may become bigger. Designing lenses is like squeezing a water balloon. Squishing one end makes the other end bulge out.

I do agree that an upgraded standard zoom would be nice but it would have to match up with the 06 tele.

[jethro10]

I'm not sure why/how you compare the 02 lens with the 08. They are completely different animals. At 3.8mm the lens performs like an 18mm on FF. That's really, really wide!.

Agreed, my standard zoom cannot get even close to what the 08 can do. Totally different animal.

If you can afford the 08 without worrying about it, it opens a whole new door.

J

[raider]

Buy the Q 08. It is like having a mini DA 12-24 for the Q. I would buy it if I had the cash

[CWRailman]

In this forum it seems we have folks who either want the extreme telephoto and think the 02 is too wide and does not have the reach and then there are those who gravitate toward the extreme wide views and embrace the 08 lens and think the 02 is not wide enough. As a "walk around" lens, I am middle of the road preferring a normal focal length appropriate for the sensor size in the camera to either of the extremes. If you look at the sales of photo equipment there are many more normal length and telephoto lenses sold than wide angle. Some folks on this board have indicated they considered purchasing the 08 because they were not satisfied with the image quality coming from the 02 and I see their point. While I was not really comparing the 02 to the 08, like I said, if the 02 had been built to a higher quality fewer people would have thought to purchase the 08 which I have been led to believe has not sold well.

[6BQ5]

The 08 has not sold well because of its perceived high price and limited availability. Similarly performing rectilinear UWA zooms for APS can be had for less, especially when there are sales and rebates. The used market for APS UWA lenses is also sizable. You get an awfully large physical chunk of glass for the money you pay. When you look at what you get physically for the 08 you have to wonder why it costs so much. It's easy to forget the built in ND filter, leaf shutter, and high quality glass. Building something small is very hard especially when its all hand assembled. The optics have to be very, very sharp with high resolution numbers when you consider the pitch of the sensor. You get a great lens but it's not cheap at all. Supply and demand doesn't help here either.

One last "strike" against the 08 lens is its limited use cases. Unless you are a real estate agent taking lots of tight indoor shots the 08 lens may not see a lot of time being mounted on the body. It will be fun to use when you use it but you'll probably use the 01, 02, and 06 lenses a lot more. When you cost the $$ per shot taken with the 08 it will be very high. I'd have to take 500 shots just for the experience of shooting with it to get the price down to $1/shot.

The 08 lens sells for $500 at B&H and that's without a hood. You can pick one up on eBay from a Japanese seller for $50-$75 less. A Sigma 10-20mm in K-mount is $379 from B&H. Consider that a Q7 with the 02 sells for $259 and the used market will have it for less. Suddenly a $500 lens for an itty-bitty camera is very expensive. I can get a FA 43mm Limited for less than that. Don't get me wrong - I'd love to have an 08 lens. It's a tough sell though.

[jethro10]

One last "strike" against the 08 lens is its limited use cases. Unless you are a real estate agent taking lots of tight indoor shots the 08 lens may not see a lot of time being mounted on the body.

Really?
My staple holiday is European cities - Museums, stately homes, inside of a windmill at Brugges (very tight space!), inside a chocolate shop in Brussels etc. The 08 is never off the camera for shots like this - Nearly everywhere is a tight fit.
At home, I mountain bike and fell walk - Landscapes. Ultra wides are known for those also.
I'd guess I'm 80% 08, 19% 02, 1% 06

I have an 06, the last keeper off that was a picture of Lake Bled church in Slovenia on a misty October in 2014.


Even a day out at a local steam fair can work nicely with an 08.


I'm obviously unusual in my use of it;-)

I like it overlaps the 02 range also, as it means I swap lenses less often, and if I can use the 08, it's a tad sharper.

No denying the cost of the 08 polarizes views on it and puts people off, even makes some hostile. But if you want to run with a Q then there is no alternative for this wider perspective if you can avoid baulking at the cost.

J

---------- Post added 27-05-15 at 03:11 PM ----------

preferring a normal focal length appropriate for the sensor size in the camera to either of the extremes.

As a total aside to this thread, I don't understand this point. What makes a standard kit lens suit a small sensor more than any other sensor?
A bit lost, sorry.

J

[CarlJF]

Instead of the 08, what I would really like to see would be something like a 3mm or 3.5mm prime. This probably could be made cheaper than the 08, maybe at a similar price than the 01. It would be great, but I'm probably just dreaming...

In fact, having a decent set of small high aperture primes would be very interesting, and something that would help the Q differentiate itself from the competition. In addition to the 01 and UWA, a WA (like 5-6mm), a portrait prime (16mm maybe) and a macro prime certainly would interest many people.

This prime set would make the Q system somewhat unique. With zoom, the Q faces a tough competion from expert compact cameras. And with only one decent prime lens available, there's always the option of going with a good fixed lens compact. But, with a set of good quality primes, Pentax and the Q would offer something that high end compact cameras could never compete with. It certainly would help put the Q on the radar of many photographers, who don't see much advantage of going with the Q instead of an RX100 or G16. Adding the possibilty to get some nice primes would certainly ring a bell in the head of advanced photographers doesn't it ?

[reh321]

In this forum it seems we have folks who either want the extreme telephoto and think the 02 is too wide and does not have the reach and then there are those who gravitate toward the extreme wide views and embrace the 08 lens and think the 02 is not wide enough. As a "walk around" lens, I am middle of the road preferring a normal focal length appropriate for the sensor size in the camera to either of the extremes..

As a total aside to this thread, I don't understand this point. What makes a standard kit lens suit a small sensor more than any other sensor?
A bit lost, sorry.

I think you need to read the sentence fragment you quoted from CWRailman in the context of the entire paragraph it appeared in. I believe his point is that he normally personally prefers "normal" lenses (i.e., one in which the focal length of the lens is close to the diagonal of the sensor). So, for an full-frame camera he would prefer a lens around 45mm, for a APS-C camera he would prefer a lens around 30mm, and for the Q he would prefer a lens around 9mm. As I have said earlier, in the days of film, I was accustomed to carrying only three lenses, a near-normal lens (50mm), a lens roughly half the focal length of normal (28mm), and only for telephoto did I find a zoom to be useful. Except for those times when I go for nature/birding walks with my wife, I think I would be quite happy having my Q7 in a small bag with a WA prime, the 01 mounted on my camera, and the 06. In that sense, I probably agree with what many others have said here.

In the days before AF, zoom lenses were designed to have the same focal point regardless of what focal length was being used; that is, you could focus at 200mm, then move back to 100mm and be certain that the object you had focused on was still in focus. With the advent of AF, that requirement was dropped, and my understanding is that designing zoom lenses was greatly simplified. Perhaps that is why mid-range zoom lenses (mildly-wide-angle to mildly-telephoto) became so common then. Over time we all became accustomed to letting our fingers do the walking (manipulating composition with zoom rather than by walking back-and-forth). In some sense, that gave us a license to stop exploring for the best shot (walking wide-to-side and well as back-and-forth). With my Q7, not using any zoom other than the 06 has encouraged me to go completely back to the old ways of composition. and I think that is a good thing!

[Tony Belding]

I'm obviously unusual in my use of it;-)

It's a wonderful thing to pick up an ultra-wide lens and get super-close to your subject. The exaggerated perspective makes for dramatic shots -- like your tractor example.

---------- Post added 05-27-15 at 11:31 PM ----------

Over time we all became accustomed to letting our fingers do the walking (manipulating composition with zoom rather than by walking back-and-forth).

I understand what you mean, and that's cool as far as it goes. Just don't forget that walking back-and-forth doesn't have the same perspective effect as zooming. With a zoom you can shoot a close-up of a subject, then walk away and shoot the same subject at a longer focal length for a different perspective.

Primes aren't going away, nor should they. However, zoom lenses today are fantastic. It isn't just because they don't have to be parfocal anymore (as you alluded), but there's a whole raft of other reasons why zoom performance has improved by leaps and bounds: They're computer designed now. They use more exotic lens elements (ED, AS). They have improved multi-coatings on all those (many) optical surfaces. Digital cameras can correct distortion and CA. Ever-improving high-ISO performance has made cameras more tolerant of slow zooms. It all adds up.

[cjfeola]

Well I am now having a bit of a dilemma. I was planning to buy a Q S-1 this Christmas and it would be a good upgrade from my original Q. The better image quality and wider field of view it gives would be really appreciated. But I am feeling it’s really is just a Q7 with a firmware update in a slightly different body!

So now I am thinking, would the money be better spent buying the 08 lens now instead, and then pick up a cheap second hand Q7 next year? I still get a nice 21mm – 33mm wide angle lens for now, and everyone is so enthusiastic about the image quality of the 08.

That's the route I went. Had the original Q -- three, actually -- with the 01, 03 and 06. The 02 bored me so badly I gave two away. Then I picked up a yellow Q7 with the matching 02. What a difference! The 02 was glued to my camera body for months...until I got the 08.

This thing is a GREAT lens. Now I keep the 08 on my Q7 at all times, and the 06 in my pocket for those times when I need the reach. Highly recommended.

Cjf

[reh321]

I understand what you mean, and that's cool as far as it goes. Just don't forget that walking back-and-forth doesn't have the same perspective effect as zooming. With a zoom you can shoot a close-up of a subject, then walk away and shoot the same subject at a longer focal length for a different perspective.

Primes aren't going away, nor should they. However, zoom lenses today are fantastic. It isn't just because they don't have to be parfocal anymore (as you alluded), but there's a whole raft of other reasons why zoom performance has improved by leaps and bounds: They're computer designed now. They use more exotic lens elements (ED, AS). They have improved multi-coatings on all those (many) optical surfaces. Digital cameras can correct distortion and CA. Ever-improving high-ISO performance has made cameras more tolerant of slow zooms. It all adds up.

Yeah, but wide-angle zooms remain a big problem for all size sensor. Until my Canon Rebel died last month, the most expensive lens I was using was a Sigma 10mm-20mm which I got because taking pictures in museums (where rows are too close for me to take the pictures I want) has always been a problem for me. I'm not sure I want to buy another wide-angle zoom for the K-30 which has replaced the Rebel, nor an 08; for the short-run, I may "get by" in museums with a 0.45X adapter I bought to use with the 01 lens (it is actually a 52mm adapter with a 52-40.5 step-down ring); I had tried a similar adapter with the Rebel just before I got the Sigma lens, and I found the Sigma to be just marginally better (literally, since most of the difference was on the margins/edges of pictures).

[pacerr]

. . . I keep the 08 on my Q7 at all times, and the 06 in my pocket . . .

I agree. The Q7 has three roles in my bag. Every day carry, desktop close-up and extreme telephoto tasks. I have the 01, 02, 03, 06 and 08 lenses plus a whole slew of adapted alternatives.

For routine carry it's the 08 + 06 -- which one is mounted depends on anticipated circumstances. With only the rear screen for focusing I prefer to depend on AF lenses and AE or P modes and the Q7 proves very satisfactory in that role. I'm quite willing to fill in any perceived field-of-view gaps with shoe leather . . . just as I did in the Spotmatic era.

Means of viewing and focusing with the LCD screen are much more important to success for me when using the Q(s) than having any particular lens. I can accommodate or compensate for FOV, perspective and composition, but if I can't see what I'm doin' . . . it ain't gonna end well come PP time.