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04-20-2016, 10:48 PM   #16
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QuoteOriginally posted by mee Quote
A number of these lenses (maybe all?) were CA monsters
Hmmm not my experience. My A*200/4 macro, A28/2, FA20/2.8, K28/2, K30/2.8, SMC85/1.9, ST85/1.9, FA*80-200, F*300 (to name most of my fast old glass) are all excellent performers that don't suffer from the terrible CA inferred. I think people are way to quick to give legacy glass a broad brush one size fits all assessment without realising there is some really good stuff out there.

04-20-2016, 11:18 PM   #17
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QuoteOriginally posted by Wild Mark Quote
Hmmm not my experience. My A*200/4 macro, A28/2, FA20/2.8, K28/2, K30/2.8, SMC85/1.9, ST85/1.9, FA*80-200, F*300 (to name most of my fast old glass) are all excellent performers that don't suffer from the terrible CA inferred. I think people are way to quick to give legacy glass a broad brush one size fits all assessment without realising there is some really good stuff out there.
M-m-m! Excellent collection !
No doubt that some Pentax lenses are really great. Especially the stars. But I couldn't come across with them. My SMC K and M were fantastic on film and not so on the digital sensor.
04-21-2016, 04:00 AM   #18
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I've had the most PF issues (less so CA) with old Tamron AD-2 lenses. The only ones I still have are the SP35~80 and the SP90/2.5 Macro.

I'm thinking it will take me a year to find out about all of them, and I'll have to work to get through them.
04-21-2016, 04:27 AM   #19
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There are situations in which most lenses will show some degree of fringing - high contrast boundaries, poor lighting conditions etc. In my experience in optimum conditions older manual lenses don't fringe noticeably more than modern lenses. However, in poor conditions in my experience they tend to perform less well than modern lenses.

However, the higher the resolution the easier I find it to deal with in post-processing. I generally find Lightroom's tools quite good at removing objectionable CA and fringing. I don't bother tidying up the whole image in most cases, just the more obvious bits.

04-21-2016, 08:34 AM - 1 Like   #20
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Actually, on full frame, Chromatic Aberration is less of an issue that it is with the same lens on an APS-C sensor. Why? Because the CA stays physically the same size on the two sensors - but has to be amplified more to make the same size print with the smaller sensor. The lens will produce more lines of resolution on full frame also - since part of the image the lens produces is thrown away on a crop sensor. Bottom line lenses will look better on full frame than they do on APS-C; although of course possibly with more vignetting and less sharp corners. However if they worked well on film they'll probably work well with a K-1.
04-21-2016, 09:56 AM   #21
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QuoteOriginally posted by Dobson Quote
I am now waiting delivery of my Pentax k1.
Can anyone tell me what to expect by using 35mm SMC lenses
and also my Pentax 6x7 lenses, I have the adaptor.
I've done very limited tests of quite a few older lenses at mid apertures on my A7r. Many were fine, with very good sharpness out to the corners. Chromatic aberration was easily correctable in most cases.

A few were busts, but I need to retest those as I discovered a tripod issue after I did the testing. One area that was ambiguous was the corner performance of some wide angles. This is because the filter stack of the A7r can cause problems with some wides. I look forward to seeing how these perform on the K-1 with a filter stack optimized for the Pentax registration distance.

I'm not going to get too far into specific lenses because we will soon be seeing users' comments actually based on the K-1. However, I'll say that I found the FA 28/2.8 and F 70-210 surprisingly good. The A 70-210 is also fine. All the 50s, of which I have many, were good. (Don't have a K-mount 50/2.) I was pleasantly surprised by the M K and SMC Takumar 200s. 135s were mixed (tripod?).

I'm sort of an old lens geek, so I'm looking forward to seeing what people have to say.
04-21-2016, 11:39 AM   #22
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QuoteOriginally posted by John Poirier Quote
I'm sort of an old lens geek, so I'm looking forward to seeing what people have to say.
I have 50 or so K-mount manual lenses to play with. I think it's going to take at least a year to get them all tested correctly.

04-21-2016, 10:49 PM   #23
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QuoteOriginally posted by monochrome Quote
I have 50 or so K-mount manual lenses to play with. I think it's going to take at least a year to get them all tested correctly.
Wow! That's a lot!
04-22-2016, 12:19 AM - 2 Likes   #24
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QuoteOriginally posted by KDAFA Quote
Wow! That's a lot!
First one in 1977. Second 1984. Then I joined ebay in 1999.
04-22-2016, 06:00 AM - 1 Like   #25
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I upgraded a lot of my Pentax-M lenses to the Pentax-A equivalents when I realized that the "full frame" wasn't going to have an aperture sensor lever. Still hoping that I can put in a focusing screen that will make manual focus work well, as there are a lot of interesting Pentax-A lenses that don't have Pentax-FA equivalents.

I'm like monochrome at this point, close to 50 K-mount lenses, but lots of redundancy.
04-22-2016, 06:26 AM   #26
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My observations are: If you can be happy with the 18-55 kit lens that came with the k50 etc. you'll be fine with most legacy lenses too. (and I know some people are happy with it)

All my lenses (see sig) outperform the kitlens by a mile regarding aberrations and resolution.
I haven't tried another kitlens for comparisons though.

I think I'm looking forward to trying my wide lenses the most on FF. :3
04-22-2016, 08:09 AM   #27
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QuoteOriginally posted by Topsy Quote
My observations are: If you can be happy with the 18-55 kit lens that came with the k50 etc. you'll be fine with most legacy lenses too. (and I know some people are happy with it)
Yeah, especially since I've already noted that the Pentax-A 50mm f/1.7 that was kitted with the Super Program I bought in 1984 is much better than the 18-55mm lens that was kitted with the K-30 I bought last year ... unless I include auto-focus and zooming into the evaluation of course.
04-22-2016, 12:00 PM   #28
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QuoteOriginally posted by Wild Mark Quote
Stopped down and this artifact disappears in the better lenses. Who shoots wide open all the time anyway
That would be me. Indoors and after the sun goes down is when I'll shoot wide open. I absolutely HATE flash, and will only use it if I'm in a studio. I won't miss the lack of an on-body pop-up flash on my new K-1.

Having purchase my first Pentax digital, the *istDs, and most Pentax bodies since then; the sensor technology has really come a long way. I love the high-ISO capabilities of the newer bodies. Along with noise reduction software, (e.g., the recently discounted Topaz DeNoise advertised here on PF), I can get completely acceptable images without using a flash. I'm really looking forward to using my old K, M, and A glass on the K-1.
05-26-2016, 05:08 PM   #29
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QuoteOriginally posted by Adam Quote
Are you talking about film-era lenses? They will work just fine. The image quality might be a bit behind modern lenses, but you should still be able to get great results. M & K series lenses will require stop-down metering since the K-1 doesn't have the aperture coupler.
Does the K1 still have the exposure problem with old lenses that do not short out the mount contacts? This is the reason that I'm not using my (excellent) M42 lenses on my K3 so much anymore; I could not trust the meter to do the "right" thing. For a given aperture, I had to adjust the exposure compensation. For some of my photography, it was ok, since I used an external spotmeter. But I could not trust the K3's meter with M42 lenses, even using the green button instead of relying on Av mode. I'm using A lenses, and they are great, but I don't have the use of my amazing preset M42 1:1 macro-takumar, nor the M42 100 SMC macro.
05-26-2016, 05:15 PM   #30
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QuoteOriginally posted by monochrome Quote
Since I normally shoot between f/5.6 and f/11 PF / CA will be less of an issue using K, M, A and FA lenses for me than other shooters. That's why I've snapped up so many of the classic lenses when they've come up the last two years. I've bought the dollar equivalent of the four new zooms - and I'll be very happy.

But that's just me.
I find that I can fix fringing for the most part during raw conversion. As such I really don't care much if a lens fringes a bit. Pretty much any lens will show some issues if you push hard enough to find them.
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