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Forum: Mini-Challenges, Games, and Photo Stories 05-31-2018, 06:23 PM  
Game Single In - May, 2018
Posted By OzzRod
Replies: 82
Views: 5,576
smc PENTAX (K) 200mm f4

PF rates this lens 9.2/10 and while I don’t feel able to quantify my assessment, there’s no doubt it’s a fine legacy lens. I bought my copy for AUD$40 second-hand, taking a punt that I’d be able to remove quite a bit of fungus from its internal elements - it worked. For this month’s SI, it was coupled to my K1 (set to M mode).

The lens is comfortingly solid, heavy, and quite long physically (sometimes irritatingly so) even without the hood that it can share with the K135. My copy rotates very smoothly through its 270 degrees of focus travel, but picking focus is hard work. I found myself spending an inordinate amount of time trying to get the focus just right. Even presetting to say f11 doesn’t guarantee a good result. That means it's not the best quick response lens, for say wildlife. However, when you get it right, it’s delightfully sharp; previous bird shots for example, have demonstrated very acceptable resolution of feather detail. I found using LV with focus peaking essential, and it did become easier to find focus as the month progressed. A minimum focus of about two metres was a PITA at times, but “close-ups” taken wide open had a somewhat forgiving dof. Taking macros (with extension tubes) was quite fiddly, but the results were very pleasing.

Bokeh is smooth and highlights come up as nice bubbles wide open, with cat eyes away from the centre. Close down just one or two stops though and the "bubbles" take on an unpleasant ninja star character. Colour fringing doesn't seem to be an issue - I only got hints of it wide open in high contrast settings, but never felt the need to correct it. I found the colour rendering to be quite natural. This matches my preference, and so I rarely adjusted WB in post, but contrast sometimes needed a boost to bring colours up to reality. Flare resistance seemed good - only with the Sun near the edge of a frame could I generate weak flare hexagons. I found the six-point starbursts moderately attractive in night shots, but with the Sun, the flare spikes were less well defined (Sandy’s “flared trousers” description is apt) but having quite a nice impact all the same.

I had hoped to try for some night sky shots to test for star sharpness, colour and coma, but by the time I was ready to do so, the Moon had brightened too much to facilitate that.

All in all, a challenging but rewarding month with a relic from the mid 1970s. There’s an album of images on Flickr here.
Forum: Mini-Challenges, Games, and Photo Stories 05-16-2018, 03:47 AM  
Game Single In - May, 2018
Posted By OzzRod
Replies: 82
Views: 5,576
Hi Friends. I'm on a week long jaunt attending the Australian Beer Can Collectors Canvention at Echuca on the NSW-Victorian border. I'll endeavour to keep posting, but comments are likely to be irregular.




I was struggling to adapt to 200mm at first but I'm enjoying it now, especially as I'm getting better with the manual focus.
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