| Author: | | Veteran Member Registered: November, 2006 Location: Copenhagen Posts: 924
1 user found this helpful
| | Review Date: March 19, 2007 | Recommended | Price: $475.00
| Rating: 10 |
| Pros: | Size, build, sharpness, rendering and general IQ | | Cons: | None. | | Sharpness: 10
Aberrations: 10
Bokeh: 10
Autofocus: 10
Handling: 10
Value: 10
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This lens is an absolute gem and perhaps the finest rendering landscape lens out there.
Tiny, beautifully crafted and capable of producing amazing pictures.
I adore the "feel of this lens.
It almost instantly took the place as my on camera lens.
I have found no issues what so ever with this lens and would not be without it. In fact I often wonder how I did without it before.
| | | | | | | Senior Member Registered: September, 2006 Posts: 181
1 user found this helpful
| | Review Date: March 7, 2007 | Recommended | Price: $470.00
| Rating: 10 |
| Pros: | Excellent build and optical quality, Small and Light. | | Cons: | Lens hood can fall off. | | New or Used: New
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I have found no faults with this lens. It is sharp wide open, and very sharp from f/4.5. Color reproduction is great and I have seen no signs of CA, or the focusing problems that some have seen. Even if it was not as good optically as it is, the small size and light weight, build quality, and quick shift focusing make it a must have. This, along with the other DA limiteds, are quickly becoming my favorite lenses. I highly recommend this lens to anyone wanting a high quality wide angle.
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| | | | | Veteran Member Registered: February, 2007 Location: South Florida, USA Posts: 437 | | Review Date: February 5, 2007 | Recommended
| Rating: 10 |
| Pros: | well built, compact | | Cons: | wish it was faster | |
Really no complaints, everything advertised and more. A must when traveling.
| | | | | Veteran Member Registered: September, 2006 Location: North Idaho Posts: 696
1 user found this helpful
| | Review Date: January 9, 2007 | Recommended
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | superior optics, quality construction, small and lightweight, it's a Limited | | Cons: | unconventional lens hood/filter attachment | |
The SMC Pentax-DA f/1:3.2 21mm AL Limited is one stunning lens. It is very, very small, constructed entirely of metal, and contains superior optics. Without a doubt, it is my best wide-angle lens that I own. Like all DA lenses, it has the clutch focusing mechanism that allows one to manually focus the lens, even when the camera body is set to autofocus.
Unlike the FA Limiteds, the DA Limiteds are only available in black and they lack the aperture ring of the FA Limited series. They are digital only lenses, designed for the smaller image circle of an APS-C sensor.
I have not experienced any focusing issues that others have noted with their sample. That is most likely because I do not use this lens in interior, low-light situations. It is my default landscape/vista lens.
My only complaint with this lens is the unconventional lens hood arrangement and the way filters are attached. True to Pentax, they rarely do everything like everybody else. That is a large part of the charm of the Pentax Corporation.
The hood is a convex shaped snap-on/twist-on metal hood with a rectangular opening for the optics. You position the lens hood onto the lens, in an about 90 degree orientation, and turn 90 degrees clockwise to snap/lock the hood onto the lens. One item that I need to constantly be aware of is that the lens cap is a push-on type that fits very snug. I'm a bit anal and if the logo is a little crooked, I'll turn the cap so that the logo is horizontally level. Dumb, I know, but I like a slight degree of order in my life. Anyway, it is very easy, when turning the cap, to unsnap the hood. I could fall off in such a situation.
The other 'problem' with the snap-on/twist-on hood is the filter arrangement. The lens uses the Pentax traditional standard 49mm filter threads, but if you mount a 49mm filter directly onto the lens, you cannot attach the snap-on/twist-on OEM lens hood. If you desire to use a sun hood with a 49mm filter, you will need a screw-on hood of some type that attaches directly to the filter.
For awhile, this is what I did. I mounted my normal 49mm protective UV filter to to the lens and used a snap-on 49mm cap from the FA or DA non-Limited lenses. That works well, but I lost the hood, which I almost always use with a lens, even indoors (to minimize stray light hitting the front element of the lens).
The other way to go is to use the OEM hood, but mount a 43mm filter INSIDE the lens hood. This works, and there is enough room between the hood and the front element of the lens, but you can only attach one filter at a time. There is hardly ever a call for more than one filter at a time anyway, but it could be possible with special effect filters (like a star filter) in conjunction with a polarizer, for example.
The hood/filter design really isn't a negative aspect of this lens, just a quirky Pentax 'feature'. That's why we love Pentax.
| | | | | | | Veteran Member Registered: September, 2006 Location: Melbourne, Australia Posts: 1,308
1 user found this helpful
| | Review Date: January 8, 2007 | Recommended
| Rating: 10 |
| Pros: | very small, very light, very sharp. | | Cons: | slight distortion | |
This is a little gem, very small and very light. no excuse to leave this at home, as its just so small...
Optics are top notch, it does have a little distortion as the FA20 had too, but it is very sharp even wide open and isn't prone to CA/PF or Flare/Ghosting..
Very good metal build quality and great hood that is just tiny.. Quick shift focusing is nice to have too..
I haven't actually had any AF issues with this lens on my K10d, though it did play up on my K100d, or maybe the k100d played up with this lens attached.. But still rarely affected real life pics..
| | | | | Inactive Account Registered: December, 2006 Location: Fairfax, VA, USA Posts: 9
1 user found this helpful
| | Review Date: January 8, 2007 | Recommended
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | Small size, very sharp and very light in weight. | | Cons: | Sometimes has a bad auto-focus | |
I think of this lens as having the sharpness of the 50mm F1.4 , but in a FL great for general wide angle picture taking. I use it indoors for family shots and plan on it being one of my travel lens / hiking lens. The only down side I can see is that it doesn't always auto-focus corrently on my K10D, but that is an issue with many wide angle lens at times. I really like this lens! The other down side is now I have to save up for the 40 and 70mm pancake lens as well!
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