[Riggomatic]

My month with the 31. This lens just begs to be wide open all the time. I kept telling myself to stop down a little, just to have some variety. My copy, at f1.8, pulled in plenty of detail and was plenty sharp on the subject.
It's always in my bag .

A sampling of my favorites:

[pepperberry farm]

closing for January...

Super Takumar 55mm f11.8 - my first Takumar, my first M42 lens....

what a lens - the gold standard of M42, let alone the Takumar line - beautifully built...

it's sharp, has great bokeh, amazing colors....

there is no downside to this lens....

and the month's shots (even one for flickr's explore):











any & everyone should have one of these at some point in their photographic journey - there isn't a shot that I tried in the month that it could not deliver....

the rest of the month:

Single in Challenge - January '22 | Flickr

[zubzubadoodle]

The Tair 3S MC Photosniper 300\4.5 is a really fun lens to use. It has a T2\M42 mount, so it's easy to convert to Pentax K. The 'gunstock' mount keeps this rather heavy lens nice and stable and pulling the trigger to close the aperture invariably makes me laugh. If you are going for birds or other smallish stuff, f11 is needed to get any sort of depth of field so a higher ISO is required. A few of my favourites from the month:

[W412ren]

Well for me this has been the hardest SIC since my first in January 2015. Camera and lens great; available time - pah!

I think I missed two days in the end and I still have some comments to complete so ... even though I got all excited about using the 31 in February I am going to bail. I just don't think Ill have the time to do it justice so I'll do my own thing instead March? April? Possibly but who knows.

Anyway ... the positives. The K-3iii has proven to me again that it can deliver perfectly useable images at ISO 6400 - I purposely limited the auto ISO for the month and with the small aperture of the zoom it sometimes proved a bit of a challenge. Once again I have been very pleased with the quality and performance of the HD 55-300PLM. Very nice bokeh wide open and acceptably sharp too.

Some pics:

[garywakeling]

Well for me this has been the hardest SIC since my first in January 2015. Camera and lens great; available time - pah!

I think I missed two days in the end and I still have some comments to complete so ... even though I got all excited about using the 31 in February I am going to bail. I just don't think Ill have the time to do it justice so I'll do my own thing instead March? April? Possibly but who knows.

Anyway ... the positives. The K-3iii has proven to me again that it can deliver perfectly useable images at ISO 6400 - I purposely limited the auto ISO for the month and with the small aperture of the zoom it sometimes proved a bit of a challenge. Once again I have been very pleased with the quality and performance of the HD 55-300PLM. Very nice bokeh wide open and acceptably sharp too.

Some pics:

Time, never enough of it, see you back soon

[iheiramo]

Takumar 200/3.5 this month. I bought this to upgrade my M200 with something sharper and better. Optically this does just that. Size and mount are where I have complains and the reason why this doesn't get so much use. My M*300 is about same length and K mount, which make it easier to use and it has more reach as a benefit. M150 and M120 give little less reach in much smaller paggage. I find the use of M42 adapters a little problematic. Flanged adapter is easy to use, but you lose the focus to infinity. Original adapter is pretty easy to put on, but harder to take off, so I don't like to use it, if I don't plan to shoot all day with M42 lenses. Also my cheap adapter is a bit loose in the mount, which make shutter shock worse. Original Pentax adapter might solve this.

Still this lens is really impressive and I'm going to hang on to it. It is very sharp. Even wide open. It renders differently from modern lenses. I really like the way it produce fat wide lines in OOF highlight edges. I found them really cool. Also 18 blades provide round bokehballs even at min aperture f22. It also produce nice spikey starbursts. There are also classic fringings in high contrast and heavy loss of contrast when shooting against light. All in all not an easy lens to live with but in right conditions great results.

The new thing I learned this month was that this lens really is worth shooting at f22. It doesn't loose much of it's sharpness and you get best starbursts that way. As I tried to live with flanged adapter the f22 also gave me reasonably sharp results much further away than my focus could reach.
Also I found out that there are two version. Mine is preset and other is auto aperture I believe.

[womble]

Well, I managed 30 of 31 days if you think I cheated on the 30th (I did...). So what did I think of the Hollywood? Super lens with lovely bokeh. Some green fringing when used against the light. Not the most exciting starbursts but I can live with that. Surprisingly sharp even at f/2, extremely sharp stopped down a tiny bit.

This is one of the more expensive K series primes I have purchased. I'm very glad, however, that I haven't just paid for the name as the lens does deliver. I found 28mm a bit wide in January when there isn't much light and the world outside is a bit grey and flat most days. In the summer I can see it getting a lot of use, but whether it will usurp my favourites (the K30/2.8 and the FA31), we'll have to see. I can see me packing the K30 when I travel simply because of the size. The lens is almost the same size as the K120 I am using in Feb.


Jan 01: faithful friend forever par Kris Lockyear, on ipernity


Jan 02: Howard (2) par Kris Lockyear, on ipernity


Jan 04: walking at sunset par Kris Lockyear, on ipernity


Jan 08: No cycling par Kris Lockyear, on ipernity


Jan 14: muddy path to the church par Kris Lockyear, on ipernity


Jan 15: Datchworth church at night par Kris Lockyear, on ipernity

Cheers, Kris.

[iheiramo]

Well, I managed 30 of 31 days if you think I cheated on the 30th (I did...). So what did I think of the Hollywood? Super lens with lovely bokeh. Some green fringing when used against the light. Not the most exciting starbursts but I can live with that. Surprisingly sharp even at f/2, extremely sharp stopped down a tiny bit.

This is one of the more expensive K series primes I have purchased. I'm very glad, however, that I haven't just paid for the name as the lens does deliver. I found 28mm a bit wide in January when there isn't much light and the world outside is a bit grey and flat most days. In the summer I can see it getting a lot of use, but whether it will usurp my favourites (the K30/2.8 and the FA31), we'll have to see. I can see me packing the K30 when I travel simply because of the size. The lens is almost the same size as the K120 I am using in Feb.

That's one lens that would be nice to own, but for my needs it's too expensive, as I mainly shoot with longer glass. But it certainly draws nicely. Thanks for the month.

[Cerebum]

Well, I managed 30 of 31 days if you think I cheated on the 30th (I did...). So what did I think of the Hollywood? Super lens with lovely bokeh. Some green fringing when used against the light. Not the most exciting starbursts but I can live with that. Surprisingly sharp even at f/2, extremely sharp stopped down a tiny bit.

This is one of the more expensive K series primes I have purchased. I'm very glad, however, that I haven't just paid for the name as the lens does deliver. I found 28mm a bit wide in January when there isn't much light and the world outside is a bit grey and flat most days. In the summer I can see it getting a lot of use, but whether it will usurp my favourites (the K30/2.8 and the FA31), we'll have to see. I can see me packing the K30 when I travel simply because of the size. The lens is almost the same size as the K120 I am using in Feb.


Jan 01: faithful friend forever par Kris Lockyear, on ipernity


Jan 02: Howard (2) par Kris Lockyear, on ipernity


Jan 04: walking at sunset par Kris Lockyear, on ipernity


Jan 08: No cycling par Kris Lockyear, on ipernity


Jan 14: muddy path to the church par Kris Lockyear, on ipernity


Jan 15: Datchworth church at night par Kris Lockyear, on ipernity

Cheers, Kris.

The IQ is glorious as are the images. The problem I have is they don't come up in my thread and I can't comment on them, so I till have to do it here ....I LOVE the stone dog ...and that church shot is beautiful. What a cracking lens

[Riggomatic]

Well, I managed 30 of 31 days if you think I cheated on the 30th (I did...). So what did I think of the Hollywood? Super lens with lovely bokeh. Some green fringing when used against the light. Not the most exciting starbursts but I can live with that. Surprisingly sharp even at f/2, extremely sharp stopped down a tiny bit.

This is one of the more expensive K series primes I have purchased. I'm very glad, however, that I haven't just paid for the name as the lens does deliver. I found 28mm a bit wide in January when there isn't much light and the world outside is a bit grey and flat most days. In the summer I can see it getting a lot of use, but whether it will usurp my favourites (the K30/2.8 and the FA31), we'll have to see. I can see me packing the K30 when I travel simply because of the size. The lens is almost the same size as the K120 I am using in Feb.


Jan 01: faithful friend forever par Kris Lockyear, on ipernity


Jan 02: Howard (2) par Kris Lockyear, on ipernity


Jan 04: walking at sunset par Kris Lockyear, on ipernity


Jan 08: No cycling par Kris Lockyear, on ipernity


Jan 14: muddy path to the church par Kris Lockyear, on ipernity


Jan 15: Datchworth church at night par Kris Lockyear, on ipernity

Cheers, Kris.

Wonderful photos throughout the month!

[womble]

Wonderful photos throughout the month!

Thank you.