|
Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
09-21-2018, 09:53 AM
|
| |
From 1981 till about 1987, I read nearly every single lens test in German magazines.
For this era, the results were roughly the same.
Of all the 3rd party brands, the only one maker who always was very near to the original "big five" lenses (Canon,Minolta,Nikon,Olympus,Pentax) was Tokina. And, disregaring the coatings, quite often equal.
And nearly always the worst (but also the cheapest) were Makinon lenses.
Sigma, Tamron, Vivitar, Soligor varied quite a lot.
What seemed strange (at the first glance) was the fact, that Tokina AT-X lenses seemed to lag behind.
But their advertisements from the start of this series reveiled the reason:
AT-X ("advanced technology") were lenses where one or more characteristics were new and/or unique at the time the lenses were introduced. It did NOT mean the over-all performance was the best available.
I found this to be very true after buying the just introduced AT-X 2.8/35-70. It was very sharp, but showed significant loss of contrast at F2.8. But then I needed the 2.8 for my auto flashes, which did only offer auto mode at selected aperture values (dependent on ISO).
Later Tokina added the AT-X Pro series, which were really meant to compete with the lenses of the Big Five. And they did.
I used to own many Tokina lenses, and the one which impressed me most was the Tokina RMC 3.8/75-150, bought used in 1982 for small money. Maybe I got an exceptional good copy, but with slides I could not see any difference to Pentax prime lenses. Unfortunately, for the PK-A mount Tokina replaced it by the 70-210, which is only at a part of its range up to the older lens design.
I have not used the 75-150 with digital (yet), as I gave it to my sister after purchasing the 70-210.
|
