[ausmoose]

I haven't done a lens review at the end of a Single In month before, but seeing as I'm taking a break for September, I figured I may as well here.

So.. the Travelling Industar....

Well, it's a standard focal length, and one which I've done I think 3 or 4 consecutive photo challenges with? So although I'm comfortable with the focal length, it's getting a little, well, boring. So that might explain my missing of about half the days last month (hold on, guys, I'm about to post my photos for the 24th, 28th, 30th and 31st. I'll get there one day!!). Another thing that made me less expressive than usual this month was the minimum focusing distance. Now THAT was a big draw back. It meant my simple "well I'll just focus on this and have some nice bokeh back there" method of finding something interesting to shoot did not usually work. As a huge bokeh lover, this really limited my photography.

I found I ended up trying quite a few HDRs this month; probably because the lens doesn't have as nice colours as Pentax lenses, and also quite a few panoramas; I guess I'm ready for a wider angle.

Anyway, enough complaining. What I DID like about the lens:
- It's tiny size! Totally adorable, and, well, pretty handy on a hike where you don't want to carry much.
- It's bokeh. Not bad, quite smooth and pleasing at times, I was pretty happy.
and.. uhh... well..... I don't know what else. It was nice, for a change, but I am ready to move on to something else, to say the least. (although it IS still mounted on my camera and I shot with it today...)

So yeah, an interesting lens, good for a travelling one: I wouldn't keep it if I owned it but it's completely fine, for a month.


And here's the rainbow of this morning, yes I know that's not Single In August but oh well.

PS - Please, can somebody (preferably in Australia ) put up their hand for next on the list for the travelling Industar? I don't want to hold on to this forever...

[Tsuken]

Great job, everyone! This has been a month of really interested lenses and images. I guess that's probably true every month, though. :-)



For August, I used a Kalimar 28-85/3.5 zoom. I bought the lens on Ebay for the standard $50 that I spend on almost all of my lenses on Ebay, although I have seen other copies of the lens going for much less. It was advertised with haze and I don't really notice it within the lens, but it is obvious in the images. Shining a light into the front element reveals significant separation appearing around the edges of the glass underneath.



It's a push-pull zoom and it requires muscle to push it in (85mm) or pull it out (28mm). There is an auto-aperture feature, but it is not reliable and I did not use it. The lens has full stops from f/3.5 to f/22. Using only full stops really helped to simplify the choices that I made using the lens manually. (The Kalimars have the deadly Ricoh pin and I nearly got this lens stuck to my ZX-L film body before I figured out to remove it.) Since the lens is a manual zoom, I also turned off shake reduction and paid attention to the focal length when selecting the shutter speed. I have only manual focus lenses and this lens was very pleasant to use. The focusing ring is smooth as silk; f/3.5 is bright enough in the viewfinder and gives enough DoF that you're not risking much if you miss by a bit. I was forced to embrace a higher ISO that I would traditionally have used, but the K-30 performs well. The lens itself is a heavy beast, metal and rubber with a 62mm filter diameter, so it was not the most discrete.



The lens performed terribly in ANY sort of direct light with tons of blue haze and massive loss of contrast. Paying attention to the light source, or just being prepared to sacrifice the quality of the image, was necessary. The lens can be sharp (f/8-22), but the wider apertures had significant softness and a distinctive "glow". Bokeh was average to not-so-great in most cases, but with enough of a distance between the in-focus subject and the background, f/5.6 allowed for pleasant bokeh, if not ideal.



With all the negatives about the lens, is really is a great range and using the lens was fun; it handles well. It was heavy to carry around, but since it is so solid and not precious to me, I let myself be pretty cavalier with it as far as man-handling.



The images it makes are distinctly soft and warm which seems to suit it well for portraits (which, I admit I do very few of), but not so much for landscapes or "detail" shots.



I allowed myself to do massive amounts of post-processing to most images. Some needed it just to be salvaged from low-contrast and lost sharpness, and others were just for cutting my teeth in Lightroom, which I downloaded for a trial period at the beginning of the month. It was a good lens to use to practice skills in the program, since tweaks and adjustments were necessary.



Using the lens was fun and I don't regret the choice, but I am left with a powerful thirst for something with better contrast/sharpness, a faster speed, and a smaller size. I'll keep the lens, because it is charming, but with all of the nice fixed focal length lenses I have covering the range with better IQ, I doubt this lens will get a lot of use in the future.



Here's to September!

I have to say, your review is its own work of art. Very instructive, and gives an excellent picture of the lens.

[elpolodiablo]

Ok I guess I should write a bit about my month with DA40XS, I've had this lens for over 2 years now(came with my K-01 kit), but I never got round to use it, a single challenge is a good way to get to know it better.

So what do I find?

1. It is sharp from f2.8, no question about it, although I shoot mostly @f4 and smaller for greater DoF I wouldn't hesitate using this lens wide open if needed.


2. AF is fast, although with K-30 when shooting people a little bit far away the focus sometimes falls to the background, but it most likely be user error, and I kinda miss quickshift focus.


3. The field of view is if I am honest, a bit narrow, especially coming off a month using M28 f2.8, but it can work as a street lens, you just have to get use to either stand further back, or just take upper body shots.


4. Purple fringing, present around f2.8-f4, not much a problem in smaller aperture. Flare is not very well controlled, just don't shoot into the sun's general direction...
5. Very good bokeh when focus within 3 metres or there abouts(someone with the Limited version please have a look at their focus distance scale), beyond that distance you get sharp image across the frame even at larger apertures, but


6. Without a focus distance scale I can't do zone focusing, ahhhh! But for landscape, it makes no difference whatsoever



My conclusion is that I like it, I like the sharpness, I like the compactness, I like the bokeh, but if I am doing it again I would get the Limited version, because of QuickShift Focus and Focus Distance Scale and the hood. Like this chap