[wolfiegirl]

(My wife comes after the kids because as an adult she's far more capable of taking care of herself, whereas the kids would need help not panicking.)

UHUH. Don't worry - we're not judging you

[robgski]

the DA70 Ltd arrived this morning

Good for you, great lens, I look forward to seeing your pix.

they now sit in two over size camera bags along with the camera chargers,

I'm not so much worried about fire, as long as my family and I get out, I'll be happy, plus we insure our stuff. The only reason I'd consider cloud storage is for all the pix, I guess I could put a 1 TB drive in fireproof box as a back up habit

The main reason to have it portable and organized is so I can move it all if necessary. Like an extended vacation, or a last minute opportunity where I might want a variety of lenses over a period of time.

[pepperberry farm]

(:

not a sad face at all...

[Rense]

Stopped photographing somehow....

[pathdoc]

Why the sad face?
LOL - hardly able to contain yourself 'eh? That's a sweet lens.

Not a sad face; it's a smilie with the eyes on the "wrong" side.

---------- Post added 30-12-16 at 18:40 ----------

hhmmm... the DA70 Ltd arrived this morning....


(:

Single in January, then? Or do you already have something else firmed up?

I am honestly not sure what I'm going with. One thing's for sure; if I run with the Industar 50/3.5, there is likely no way I'm recording the aperture.

[pepperberry farm]

Single in January, then? Or do you already have something else firmed up?

I am honestly not sure what I'm going with. One thing's for sure; if I run with the Industar 50/3.5, there is likely no way I'm recording the aperture.

yes - she'll be the Single for January; I had considered the K24/2.8, but this late arrival pushed me away...

[wstruth]

My priorities in a fire are: kids, wife, dogs. After that, I'll sacrifice myself trying to rescue as many cameras and lenses as I can.

(My wife comes after the kids because as an adult she's far more capable of taking care of herself, whereas the kids would need help not panicking.)

Kids: Gone, Agree about my wife, she'll be out before I am: I would make sure. And the bags are not far from the door. They also make it easy to organize the lenses.

[pathdoc]

SMC-FA-28mm f/2.8

I bought this lens partway through last year because I wasn't getting good focus results with an inherited Vivitar 28/2.8 K mount lens, and aside from a few trips out it has been sadly neglected until now.

It's unfortunate that I waited until December to single with this lens, as I think it might have shone better with some outdoor time when the grass was green and the flowers were blooming. It's my widest full-frame AF prime, and sometime early next year it will be going on a K-1 where it finally gets to show its true colours. Nevertheless, with various optical modifiers put in front of and behind it (as is my tendency), it can still be a pretty useful piece of equipment - and naturally, if I'd done a whole lot more with my "blind" extension tubes, the aperture ring would have come in handy.

Being a Pentax wide prime, it's pretty light and compact and it makes handling either the K-5 or the *istDS a breeze. Sure, it's no DA 40 XS (then again, nothing is), but it has the standard 49mm filter thread that is common to so many of Pentax's lenses (and a large proportion of mine). It's no Limited or * lens, but it gets the job done, especially if you're only shooting for family and friends, and manual focus is sufficiently damped that it can be tossed onto any K-mount body at all if it happens to be all you have. Versatility plus.

[wolfiegirl]

CZJ Tessar DDR 50/2.8

So my assessment is based on a dud copy in terms of broken aperture/focus rings. But in spite of that, it still produced some lovely images. Pretty sharp when when stepped down to f22..


a field of hay by Wolfie Girl, on Flickr

Details lovely and sharp with lovely bokeh when used open wide up until maybe f 5.6, before bokeh gets a little busy.

WIde open:


a medley of coriander flowers by Wolfie Girl, on Flickr

vs

maybe 3.5/5/6?


pebbles to my heart by Wolfie Girl, on Flickr

It has a pentagon bokeh when stepped down a little - so keep that in mind if that's a dealbreaker for you.


champagne bokeh by Wolfie Girl, on Flickr

I enjoyed the challenge of shooting in live view/using my feet to focus. And I managed to raid wolfiepup's toybox to set up things, which I'd been wanting to do for a while. Laziness always got in the way, and I kept on using wolfiepup and ginger as crutches. Didn't have that excuse this time around.

This lens also brought an explores with it, so that's pretty chuffy.

Bottom line: If you want one, get one. I can't discourage you. Heck, I'll probably keep an eye out in case I ever come across a working copy. It works great for close ups, with a mfd of about 20-30cms, so in that respect, it's always going to have a place in my kit for that. Although if I'm honest, I have a number that do already, so really I should let this one go, considering the shape that it's in.

Save

[UncleVanya]

DA* 200 - A prime with a mixed reputation. Sandy had strong fringing issues with his (I've seen some of that in the past myself). The lens is a great size for the reach and the quality. It loves to be shot wide open. Bokeh is pretty nice as is the overall rendering. I've used it with the HD DA 1.4x and the F 1.7x converters (and even stacked them) in the past and results were not bad at all. Processing with DXO Optics means some autocorrection is already applied so some of the faults of this lens may have been covered up before I got to look at them. But overall even if that's the case I have to say this was a pleasant month using this telephoto. Sure the minimum focus distance (MFD) was a little long at times but the Canon 500D filter and the deglassed 2x TC took care of those times when needed. Overall there is nothing I can complain about at all.

Favorites from this month:

[babywriter]

Processing with DXO Optics means some autocorrection is already applied so some of the faults of this lens may have been covered up before I got to look at them.

Funny you should mention DxO Optics. I didn't even know about this software until I saw it a couple of days ago at a local store. It definitely looked intriguing.

Would you be willing to share some thoughts on it? I renew my Adobe subscription in March, and so I'm looking around a bit at other alternatives before I take the plunge for another year.

[UncleVanya]

Funny you should mention DxO Optics. I didn't even know about this software until I saw it a couple of days ago at a local store. It definitely looked intriguing.

Would you be willing to share some thoughts on it? I renew my Adobe subscription in March, and so I'm looking around a bit at other alternatives before I take the plunge for another year.

Sure. Version 9 is available for free and version 10 is what I have. 11 is out as well.

Try 9 and if you like it buy 11. The whole package isn't cheap.

DxO & DigitalCamera | DxO.com

What I like is that it does a very good job of correcting lens perspective and color and so forth.

[Tsuken]

Sigma 30mm f1.4 EX DC—again again again.

Nothing new to say about it really; it's still big, heavy, clunky, slow at AF, but stupidly-sharp when stopped down a little, with a monstrous wide aperture enabling teensy DoF and lowish-noise shots in low light. It has rather a lot of blades (8 maybe?—I did count, but I forgot), so the bokeh can be pretty smooth. MFD is annoyingly-long for the FoV.

Fave shot of the month is probably this one:


Blooming Drops by -Occasionally Focused-

Overall, if it weren't for the f1.4 max aperture, I'd have ditched it once I experienced the Plastic Fantastic, but that is a pretty good thing to have. I wouldn't buy it just for that though.

[babywriter]

Sure. Version 9 is available for free and version 10 is what I have. 11 is out as well.

Try 9 and if you like it buy 11. The whole package isn't cheap.

DxO & DigitalCamera | DxO.com

What I like is that it does a very good job of correcting lens perspective and color and so forth.

Thanks so much!

[babywriter]

So, a few observations on the Tamron Adaptall (1st gen) 70-150mm f/3.5. Here's the PF entry on it (mine was the non-macro version): Tamron Adaptall 70-150mm f3.5/3.8, CZ715, CZ150, QZ150M Lens Reviews - Tamron Adaptall Lenses - Pentax Lens Review Database

- The lens handles reasonably well, despite its length (about 110mm, or 4-1/2") and minimum focusing distance (1.5m - THAT bothered me for a while). My copy focused smoothly, although the helicoid turns about 190 degrees, and that feels like a long throw when you're in the zone. Items popped into focus without much issue, and the long throw made fine adjustments easy.

- No complaints with color rendition, although things felt a bit cold and flat straight out of camera - I can't pinpoint it any more than that. I usually punched the vibrance, saturation and clarity settings up a tad in Lightroom pretty much as a general practice.

- from f/3.5 to f/8, the lens shows its "Hyde" side - very soft wide open, with paintery, glowy bokeh. I found this really frustrating, but in retrospect it did result in some interesting rendering, if you're looking for that kind of thing:



at f/4.5, things got a bit better, but still glowy and soft. This shot made Explore for a few hours, so I can't complain:



f/8 was - ugh - just mediocre. Average sharpness, and by then most of the glowy bokeh had disappeared. At that point, I was ready to give up.

But at f/11 and above - rather abruptly, and shockingly - the "Jekyll" side of the lens took hold: impressive sharpness and rendering - rivaling some of the best vintage lenses I've used:



That sharpness held, more or less, all the way up to f/22, but f/11 and f/13 were the sweet spots.

The other thing I discovered - and ended up loving - was the flare, which began showing up if the sun was, say 20-30 degrees off to the side. It wasn't pretty, necessarily, by itself - but when I threw it into HDR Efex Pro 2 and began to play, i ended up with some stuff I really liked.





I may pull this lens out, from time to time, just to do this.