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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
06-13-2015, 04:02 AM
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All this is great. But these photos are all taken under conditions that most lenses should do decently in. OK, I did have a Sigma 70-300 for awhile that had awful contrast in every situation and even after post processing, it was still awful, but modern and old lenses should be fine when stopped down a little. I guess the question in my mind is: "Are there situations where more recent vintage lenses out perform older lenses?" And the answer to that is for the most part, yes. If you only shoot in the golden hours, never shoot into the sun and do a little bit of post processing, most lenses out there will work well for you. If you need/want auto focus, do shoot in situations prone to flare, or other situations that may reduce contrast, than more recent lenses will likely do a little better.
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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
06-12-2015, 08:41 AM
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I see folks posting photos in this thread that aren't hard on a lens. To me, the question is how well a lens does when pointed at a strong light source. The worst lenses I have from that standpoint are the FA limiteds and my DA *16-50. But they are still a lot better than the FA-J lenses I used to own.
 Sunrise over Gatlinburg by Vincent1825, on Flickr
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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
06-11-2015, 03:25 AM
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I guess I would venture to say a couple of things. First of all, there are no dogs in Pentax's line up at present, whereas there have been some pretty poor lenses sold in the past. Top glass of all generations performed and continues to perform well on digital sensors. Second, older glass is definitely more prone to fringing, which is usually fixable in post processing. Third, zooms have come a lot farther over the years than primes have. Primes from forty years ago are much more likely to be good performers on digital than zooms from the same era. Coatings have improved a lot and flare resistance on current lenses is pretty phenomenal compared to some of the older lenses (particularly non-Pentax lenses).
The final thing to me is that some of the older lenses don't have as high contrast as current lenses. This is quite different from sharpness and while it can be added in post, it can easily make photos lack pop -- at least without doing a little bit of editing after the fact.
In the end, most older lenses do well, but you do have to be a little more careful with some of them and some may have specific weak areas that need to be avoided when shooting.
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