New Member Registered: June, 2007 Location: London Posts: 22 | | Review Date: December 29, 2007 | Recommended | Price: $100.00
| Rating: 7 |
| Pros: | Unusual, Pleasant output, useful zoom range, nice to use | | Cons: | Handling a bit weird, not "killer sharp" but still good | |
This was an ebay purchase for me and I use it on a Samsung GX10 which is my "spare body" I keep at the office (I use a K10D mostly but the cameras are identical anyway).
It's a weird thing to use with its small push/pull zoom and focus ring - particularly unfashionable and especially odd to use on such a small lens. But that's part of the appeal too.
There's something nice and old-school about this, and it's lovely and small with a very useful range that's great for social gatherings - and it's faster than the kit lens by one stop at its longer end.
They call it a "macro" but in reality although it focuses quite close it's hardly a macro - maybe 10:1 or something at best!
As a bit of fun I would give this lens a thumbs up as a holiday/party/fun lens - and I second everything in the previous review about pleasing colour and "vinyl versus CD" feel!!!!
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Forum Member Registered: November, 2006 Location: Birmingham, UK Posts: 97
2 users found this helpful
| | Review Date: January 10, 2007 | Recommended
| Rating: 8 |
| Pros: | Colour, Tone, Resolution | | Cons: | Distortion, Soft | |
I can only give my subjective opinions on this lens, and only for film, not digital. I've done no formal testing at various apertures or at brick wall etc, and for a good while it was my only lens for my camera. Now I can compare it to the A50/1.4 and A70-210/4.
Well, it's a well-made compact lens with a one-touch zoom and variable max aperture, with close-focussing ability that is useful.
Image quality - I find it seems to work nicely at whatever aperture. It seems to do some nice saturated colours at around f8, but wide open the bokeh is also nice, and is where I use the lens most. However, the lens can be quite soft, and I think this is worse wide open. There is pincushion at 70 and barrel at 35. At around 50 both disappear. This normally isn't a problem for anything other than straight lines, and I would say the distortion doesn't usually affect the photo. If you need are shooting architecture you can move the lens to 50 to remove this problem. Resolution is superb - I have enlarged 35mm negatives to 20x30" and they've come out with much more detail (and sharpness, surprisingly) than they had any right to for 35mm.
Overall, I recommend this lens for its colour and overall, pleasing rendition. It's more of an arty lens - you won't get crystal clear, sharp images, but you will get a pleasing image that has a lot of tone and body to it. Maybe a bit like vinyl versus the modern CD ?
Duncan.
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