| Author: | | Pentaxian Registered: March, 2008 Location: Quebec city, Canada Posts: 9,357 | | Review Date: October 22, 2010 | Recommended | Price: $80.00
| Rating: 8 |
| Pros: | Well built, good exposure, even and neutral results | | Cons: | Lacks some punch when compared to other primes | | Sharpness: 8
Aberrations: 7
Bokeh: 7
Handling: 9
Value: 8
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I got this lens a bit by chance, after getting the DA21 LTD (to which it obviously gets compared).
The build quality is great, with a better feel than the A50 f1,4. Metal barrel, smooth focus (short throw, like most wide primes). Good weigth and size, too, though the DA21 got me spoiled. It's also larger than the Takumar bayonet 28 mm, and a bit heavier.
Image quality is very good, with sharp, even results across the frame. Even wide open it's usable, even though it improves when stopped down (obviously). It's bright enough that manual focus is easy.
The limitation of this lens is that, when I compare it with my DA21, it lacks punch when comparing images straight out of the camera. The DA21 has much more saturated and contrasty outputs, but then again it's one of the main perks of that lens, so that's not a fair comparison. The A28's results are very neutral and should react well to post-processing. Taken by itself the images are not lacking, but when compared the difference shows.
Comparing with the Tak bayonet 28 mm, I'd say both have similar colour renderings, but the A28 is better wide open.
In short it's a good lens, very well made. It just lacks the magic feeling of the limiteds.
| | | | | | | Site Supporter Registered: April, 2010 Location: Adelaide, South Australia Posts: 813 | | Review Date: August 17, 2010 | Recommended | Price: $80.00
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | Great IQ and colour | | Cons: | focussing | | Sharpness: 9
Aberrations: 10
Bokeh: 8
Handling: 9
Value: 10
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Shop around, these go for a wide price variance, and try to get a good copy, and you won't be disappointed.
I do find that distance focussing can be a little tricky (at least it is for me), but when you get it right, the detail and its resolving power is very good. With experience, this becomes markedly easier.
Contrast in shots is greatly improved when using a lens hood (I just use a cheap rubber one).
There is some edge softness at F2.8, but at F4 and above this disappears.
Overall, quite a solid performer, a good compromise for walking-about with.
Cheers, John
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October 2010 update, after participating in "Single in September" and using this lens everyday for a month, I have upgraded its score to 9.
 | | | | | Site Supporter Registered: February, 2010 Location: Salt Lake City, UT Posts: 1,910 | | Review Date: July 30, 2010 | Recommended | Price: $50.00
| Rating: 7 |
| Pros: | compact, sharp, useful for reverse macro | | Cons: | plastic build elements, focus ring can come loose | |
This really is a nice little lens for budget shooting. it's sharp, it's snappy, it's compact. It's color rendition is fine, and 28mm is a useful focal length, being somewhat wide on APS-C. It's also a full frame lens.
It's lack of auto focus means that I'm unlikely to put this in the camera bag, let alone on the camera, and will shoot with my DA* 16-50 instead.
I picked up my copy to reverse mount for macro, and for that, it's focal length is great.
If you're looking for a budget way to try out faster glass, this is a great start. They're common and cheap.
| | | | | Veteran Member Registered: July, 2010 Posts: 2,395 | | Review Date: July 22, 2010 | Recommended | Price: $100.00
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | fast, good build, small | | Cons: | low colour saturation/constrast in harsh light | |
A great starter prime, and a relatively inexpensive way to a good prime on your dSLR with a loose-normal field of view. Very sharp at f 4, and very respectable at f 2.8. As far as resolution is concerned, this lens is far sharper across the frame than the kit lens. A good FOV for indoors, but not particularly bright. Good for general photography and landscapes. I find it pairs nicely with a 50mm 1.7 or faster.
The build quality is very nice and operation is generally smooth, like a good instrument.
Worst quality of this lens has to do with harsh lights, colour contrast and flares. Easily fixed with a lens hood and/or polarizing filter. However, even with these things, the images will not be as saturated as would see with a 50mm, or one of the DA lenses. It's a nice look actually, more organic / film-like (of course, depending on the film), but it does not make the colours pop like other lenses. There is all sorts of resolution buried in the images, so it takes well to post-processing. I suspect a lot of the "meh" comments about this lens are related to it's rather muted colour palette. Bokeh renders nicely for a wide-angle.
I would give this lens an 8 if there was an alternative in this price range... but this lens is SHARP for the dollar.
Overall a great prime for those on a budget or just starting out into the world of primes. The aperture is wide enough and the FOV is very flexible. I find this lens is great for "snapshots" - despite manual focus, it's a nice focal length for spontaneous pictures.
| | | | | | | Senior Member Registered: January, 2009 Posts: 173 | | Review Date: June 26, 2010 | Recommended | Price: $55.00
| Rating: 8 |
| Pros: | Cheap, sharp, has A setting. | | Cons: | Lacks contrast and saturation | |
Got this lens on eBay in minty condition as a replacement for my 28mm SMC Takumar. The build quality of the A series lenses is a bit disappointing to me, but this lens actually handles really well. The lens is very sharp in the center even at f2.8, some sharpness fall off at the edges. Little to no vignetting, CAs are almost non-existent. Distortions are very low too. However, when shotting yesterday in the direction of the sun (without a hood) the contrast and saturation was rather low. When shooting away from the sun this thing excels. For the $55 I've paid for it this lens is great. I think it outperforms my SMC Takumar 28mm f3.5 in all areas.
| | | | | | | | Review Date: December 17, 2009 | Recommended
| Rating: 8 |
| Pros: | Enough sharp, good bokeh | | Cons: | Not so good image corners due to 5.6 | |
Just got this lens from e-bay. Using it with GX20.
1. It is good (not great) walk around lens on aps-c (42mm), but could be used also for landscape photo closed down to 2-3 steps.
2. It is little bit soft and cs wide open, but good for close portraits shots. Closing it down to 2 stops makes it sharp and usefull for street photography.
3. It is strongly depends on focus precision, even closed, so I use nikon`s K3 focusing screen (rebuilded by our chineese friends) and using microprisms ring have enough precised manual focus.
4. Contrast is good from wide open.
5. Bokeh is smooth and looks well for my first view.
| | | | | New Member Registered: December, 2009 Location: Egham, Surrey Posts: 1
5 users found this helpful
| | Review Date: December 2, 2009 | Recommended | Price: $100.00
| Rating: 10 |
| Pros: | Crispy sharp, good contrast, detail, color redition, no distortion | | Cons: | | |
The picture quality from this lens is far more than the price I paid. Highly recommended to get it if you want to have 28mm. lens.
 | | | | | New Member Registered: January, 2009 Location: PNW Posts: 11 | | Review Date: September 9, 2009 | Recommended | Price: $50.00
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | good all around focal length on digital sensor, fastish, sharp, bokeh | | Cons: | none really for the price i paid | |
love this lens great for people shots and the bokeh can be pretty nice.
took this at f2.8 http://www.flickr.com/photos/35985156@N03/3902392985/ | | | | | Inactive Account Registered: June, 2009 Posts: 35
1 user found this helpful
| | Review Date: September 7, 2009 | Recommended | Price: $90.00
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | Sharp, cheap, good built quality by today's standards | | Cons: | | |
I just want to add a few particulars to the other reviews. I had mixed results from the start with a K20D and this lens. Not very high in resolution, it seemed. But then some shots turned out very very sharp.
The problem is with the regular focusing screens in the digital slrs the point of perfect focus is quite vague. So i used the green light focus confirmation. After a while I tried focusing the lens with live view at 8x. In my lens there is a slight constant difference between perfect focus and the steady green light point, like 1 millimetre on the lens scale. Completely unperceptible through the viewfinder, and hard to spot on pictures if you close the lens down, but when you get it right it's very very sharp even at f/2.8. For maximum sharpness focus using live view and f/2.8. Again, the difference in sharpness at 100% is huge, at least in my lens, even if you're going for f/8
| | | | | New Member Registered: August, 2009 Location: targu-jiu Posts: 4 | | Review Date: August 27, 2009 | Recommended | Price: $125.00
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | small ,sharp,even at f2,8 | | Cons: | | |
I find this lens just perfect for street shooting,it's s poor man's 43 ltd  | | | | | New Member Registered: October, 2008 Location: London / Southampton Posts: 1 | | Review Date: February 4, 2009 | Recommended | Price: $90.00
| Rating: 8 |
| Pros: | Beautiful construction, good image quality | | Cons: | | |
Got this lens for £40 at a local shop.
This is by far my most used lens for street and architectural photography. The lens does display some minor purple fringing that the edges when wide open, but this disappears completely by f/4. Likewise the edges are less sharp and display some vignetting at f/2.8, but this rapidly clears up as the lens is stopped down.
The imges produced are not the most puchy or exciting but i feel it produces very 'real', accurate images. One of it's best features is the lack of distortion; horizons and edges are truly straight!
My copy is wonderfully constructed, the focus ring is a joy to use especially as the full focal range is acheived with only a 90-degree twist of the ring.
| | | | | | | | Review Date: April 6, 2008 | Recommended | Price: $100.00
| Rating: 8 |
| Pros: | good build quality and image quality is good | | Cons: | | |
I think someone summed this lens quality as "blah". I can under stand this because I have not found a wide angle lens to knock me off my feet in image quality either.
That said, this is as good as or better than everything I have used in the 17-35mm range (that would be the Tamron SP17-35, Tamron Adptall 17mm, Vivitar 19mm, Tokina 20-35mm, Sigma 15-30mm and Canon EF 24mm). Expect to get better quality when looking at 50mm and longer lenses, but for a wide angle that you can pop in your pocket, this one does the trick.
This is one of my favorite travel lenses and I have taken some great images with this lens on both film and digital.
| | | | | Veteran Member Registered: October, 2006 Location: NJ USA Posts: 13,072
3 users found this helpful
| | Review Date: February 29, 2008 | Recommended
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | film perspective, quick to use | | Cons: | colors not as concentrated as with some | |
This lens doesn't get enough respect. It has very good resolution, though contrast and color concentration aren't typical Pentax.
But really it is a judgement call - sometimes I feel the modern Pentax color rendition is a bit TOO concentrated, a bit too there. The more restrained picture this 28 gives can be seen as more naturalistic.
This restraint may be seen as lack of contrast or resolution, yet when I've tested the lens directly, I find what difference there is is very minor. Versus the 16-45, the 28 has the ultimate edge in resolution and micro gradations, while the zoom concentrates the color and gradation more. It is a bit of a paradox, the zoom on its own seems better, yet on closer inspection the 28 shines. Resolution wise this lens is fully equivalent with the Takumar 50's and 35.
I love this as a walk around lens - especially on film. My sample works beautifully, with a good focus feel.
Aug '08 update: I now have 4 other 28's plus the above mentioned 16-45. The SMC-A reproduces noticeably more detail and sharpness at every aperture than either Super / S-M-C 3.5 Taks, and beats all the others as well. The Jpeg sizes straight out of the camera are very much higher. I found the color and contrast similar to the Taks, which was a bit of a surprise given the overall impression of the lens. The Vivitar TX 2.5 has a bit more contrast and color saturation, and stopped down gets close to the Takumars in resolution. The more I use this lens the more I'm impressed.
| | | | | Inactive Account Registered: November, 2007 Location: North Brunswick, NJ Posts: 473 | | Review Date: January 25, 2008 | Recommended | Price: $85.00
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | Good optics, sharp picture quality | | Cons: | Cheap build quality | |
This is actually a very good lens. It renders images beautifully with accurate, warm colors. For the focal length, the bokeh is actually quite smooth and buttery. It also has the A setting on the aperture ring, which allows you to adjust the aperture straight from the camera body, instead of having to do it with the ring as you would on a K or M lens. The focus is also very precise and smooth.
My only gripe with this lens is the cheap build quality. I bought mine second-hand. It's in great condition, but I've gotten used to the build quality of my M 50/1.7. So, it doesn't really par up. Pentax used some combination of metal and plastic, which didn't work right. Also, on my copy, the aperture ring is a little stiff.
Despite the one negative, this lens is a gem. I recommend it completely.
| | | | | Senior Member Registered: October, 2007 Location: Wisconsin Posts: 273 | | Review Date: December 20, 2007 | Recommended
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | Small, light, sharp, fairly low distortions | | Cons: | Slightly loose focusing ring | |
I got this lens as a loaner from my grandfather along with a Super Program. It is very sharp once you stop down past f5.6. Faster than that, it is still reasonably sharp.
The sample I had had a slightly loose focusing ring.
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