[pepperberry farm]

one day left in this month's SIC.... I've shot enough for the review, however....

for April, I chose a Super-Takumar 35mm f2 - the early/fat version, with the 67mm filter ring....

firstly, the elephant in the room - this is a large, heavy lens for the focal length, and combined with the helicoid adapter I used this month... it was occasionally ponderous...

but the rest of my thoughts are simply amazed at what this lens can pull off, with its early coatings, with its 5-bladed aperture, and the loose nut behind the camera...

exceptionally sharp and colorful, wonderful clarity, and (usually) beautiful bokeh - what more to ask for?

I even pulled off an Explore this month at flickr:




more of my favorites from April:











so, aside from the size/weight and occasionally busy bokeh - this one is a keeper....

the rest of the month with this lens:

Single In Challenge - April '22 | Flickr

[Chris_K]

Thank you, everyone, for another month. I couldn't wait to finally get my Pentax DA 20-40 Limited and I'm not disappointed at all. It's a fantastic lens with great IQ. The zoom range suits me just fine and I wouldn't mind another month with this lens.
I managed to get the explore for the picture I really like:



And here are some of my other faves:

[jersey]

I am one little step from selling 35 Macro. What stops is the the fact that without it I will have only 3 lenses Still I don't like it, expected more in terms of walk around lens and while it is great lens, it is great Macro lens. And very bad standard lens.


I don't even have shots I am really happy with or proud of.

[Minimonster]

I am one little step from selling 35 Macro. What stops is the the fact that without it I will have only 3 lenses Still I don't like it, expected more in terms of walk around lens and while it is great lens, it is great Macro lens. And very bad standard lens.

I find it great for macro and pretty good for other things too. I singled it a couple of years ago. Single in July | Flickr Maybe you have a poor copy?

[Riggomatic]

Month with the DFA 100mm WR...

This was the first time I've really taken the time with the 100mm on the K-1. At the beginning of the month, I tried to photo a few longer range landscape shots, and I couldn't do it. I deleted a lot of stuff, and would fall back on some sort of close-up image for the day. Once I realized that I had to use this lens in such a way, my delete button cooled down and I had a few more keepers. I ended up using manual 90% or more of the time. The focus rings isn't bad, but not the nice dampened feel of the previous months K series 135mm. Purple fringing can creep in to the shot if you don't keep an eye on reflections or high contrast situations. It is a keeper for sure.


A sampling from the month:





A crop and reprocessed eye shot, to increase the creepiness factor .

[jersey]

I find it great for macro and pretty good for other things too. I singled it a couple of years ago. Single in July | Flickr Maybe you have a poor copy?

It is not bad technically, I just don't like the way it renders photos. They feel bland to me. I rather use 20-40 set on 35 then 35 Macro.

[womble]

Using the shift lens for a month was always going to be a challenge but I had some trips planned and it seemed a good choice. Not only did the trips not materialise, but my motorcycle had to go in for repair (again) leaving me without transport. As a result, I posted some of the worst "safety" shots I've ever posted and if it wasn't for wanting to complete the challenge, they would not have seen the light of day. So, how does one use the shift on a K-3iii? The ideal is this:

1. Set-up tripod.
2. Make sure that the lens is not shifted, the green dot is facing the direction you want to shift and the aperture is wide open.
3. Level the camera using the in-viewfinder levels (these appear to be more accurate than the one on the back screen).
4. Switch to live view, zoom in the view, and focus. I have found that the focus ring goes a bit beyond infinity so mostly I have to back off a tiny bit.
5. Either in live view or normal view, shift the lens.
6. Close down the aperture. I usually use somewhere around f/11.
7. Set the camera to MUP mode.
8. You can use either M or Av. Sometimes, the K-3iii does something funky in Av mode and often you'll need to dial in some negative exposure compensation.
9. Take the photo with either a wired or wireless remote (I use both depending on which one I have with me. If I have forgotten both I can use my phone as a wireless remote).
10. Review and if necessary tweak things and repeat.

Can one use it hand-held? With the K-3iii (and I think the K-1 but I don't have one of those), yes. Similar process to the above but (a) manually turn off SR and so make sure the shutter speed is high enough to reduce camera shake usually by upping the ISO (b) use the green hexagon to confirm focus. As noted above it does seem to go a little past infinity so don't rely on just going to the end of the focus travel (c) once you have the basic composition and exposure sorted, concentrate on the levels in the viewfinder (d) press the shutter very softly (e) take multiple shots so you can pick the one which is actually level.

Being an architecture nerd (especially historic architecture), the shift lens is one I have used quite a bit before. Using it consistently, however, has taught me a few things. Firstly, it is a pretty good lens for other subjects too and is surprisingly good at close-up shots. Secondly, when using it hand-held, turn off the SR. The SR system assumes the centre of the lens is central to the sensor. With a shifted shift lens, it is not. The number of times I wished it was wider (or that I was using a K-1) is surprisingly rare. Often the problem can be got around by taking several pictures with different degrees of shift and merging them in Photoshop. I have often seen people say that the 28mm shift is "useless" on APS-C -- I couldn't disagree more.

The shift lens is a very regular occupant of my camera bag, and will continue to be so. On occasions, though, I might well just use it as a regular 28mm when I don't want to change lenses or carry a second one. (Mostly, I have my K30/2.8 in my bag.) My only gripe / puzzlement is sometimes it seems to have a little bit of distortion but not always. Usually, one can fix it in Lightroom, but on very rare occasions I have found it impossible to fix which has been very annoying.

My biggest regret is not having one of these 35 years ago, although it is much harder to use on film than digital simply because getting the camera absolutely level is much trickier. I've always hated converging verticals in building photos and I spent many years being frustrated by them. The principal reason for getting into large format photography was for architecture.

I'm not especially proud of this months images, but here is a selection of them.


April 01: All Saints par Kris Lockyear, on ipernity


April 03: St Andrew and St Mary par Kris Lockyear, on ipernity


April 07: Kings Cross (1) par Kris Lockyear, on ipernity


April 13: Church at night par Kris Lockyear, on ipernity


April 21: Going going gone! par Kris Lockyear, on ipernity


April 23: military man par Kris Lockyear, on ipernity


April 25: Yashica Mat 124G par Kris Lockyear, on ipernity


April 30: Bluebells in the coppice par Kris Lockyear, on ipernity

[Jeff]

I am one little step from selling 35 Macro. What stops is the the fact that without it I will have only 3 lenses Still I don't like it, expected more in terms of walk around lens and while it is great lens, it is great Macro lens. And very bad standard lens.


I don't even have shots I am really happy with or proud of.

I think you may have a less than perfect copy.

It is, for me, a lens that can and has done everything I've asked of it.

Yes, it has its foibles, but when when you know what they are, and how it is on whatever camera you have it on, then it's magical.

This photograph is my favourite that I have taken, and it is with the 35 macro...

[Chris_K]

It is not bad technically, I just don't like the way it renders photos. They feel bland to me. I rather use 20-40 set on 35 then 35 Macro.

The 20-40 is difficult to beat... If the 35 didn't catch on and you still need a macro lens, you might want to try sth like the Tamron 90. I own the AF version and it is a fantastic lens. There are many alternatives at 90-100 mm.

[JensE]

I'm sorry to not have completed the month - most times the day was over before I had a chance to review and post anything. I'll not try to catch up and also skip May. The lens however, smc FA 77 Ltd., was everything it promises to be. The minimum focus distance is a little too long for a sic, but in practice, I have used it for a number of very nice people shots, where it is no issue. Thanks to everybody who nevertheless gave feedback, I'll try to follow the next few months, while taking a break. If I was to pick any of the posted ones, it would be the tower, because I managed to give it a more interesting look due to the slight perspective compression of a short telephoto and narrow DoF, than the otherwise fairly flat light and open scene promised.

[iheiramo]

Already May, so I'm little late with last shot and wrap up, but I was away yesterday. Anyway you all already know that DFA*85 is a fabulous lens and I recommend it, if you find 2K in your wallet with no name in it or you seriously want it. I really don't need this lens, but it sure is fun to own it.
For my basic list of cons there is new add on. For landscape shooting when stopped down it doesn't bring anything over the M85, which is the cheapest 85 in Pentax lineup. So if you shoot landscape with this lens, just leave it wide open

Square month was fun and I think I got better eye for square composition. The square crop mode in K1ii certainly helped composing, as you had visual aid for square composition. When shooting RAW you got full file despite crop mode and needed to do cropping in pp, so the crop mode really was only an visual aid. The good about this was that I didn't have to play with crop mode during the month, as I could make other aspect rations of the shots if I wanted. On few days the square didn't work as well as portrait frame on the best shot of the day. Familiar problem from Instagram from the days they allowed square only. Thought the square only album looks good, I probably will enjoy fleksibility of the frames in the future.

favorites from the month:









And one that didn't make it, as I couldn't fit it in square format