| Author: | | Veteran Member Registered: November, 2006 Location: Sydney, Australia Posts: 593
1 user found this helpful
| | Review Date: January 8, 2007 | Recommended
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | Excellent sharpness. | | Cons: | Focus limiter | | Sharpness: 9
Aberrations: 10
Bokeh: 10
Autofocus: 8
Handling: 9
Value: 9
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I love this lens, it has excellent sharpness and the bokeh is superb.
Some may be disappointed at the lack of focus limiter, but I have never felt the need for one. The focus clamp is a better bet for my use.
Highly recommended.
| | | | | | | Inactive Account Registered: March, 2007 Location: Melbourne, Australia Posts: 13
1 user found this helpful
| | Review Date: April 2, 2007 | Recommended | Price: $500.00
| Rating: 8 |
| Pros: | Sharpness, Bokeh, compactness | | Cons: | focus limiter | |
Beautiful lens, nice weight and great for candids on DSLR. Focus limiter would be very nice but you get used to dealing without it.
Very small lens in comparison to other brand offerings.
Fantastic clarity and contrasty for pin sharp macro images. Small enough not to need a tripod collar.
49mm filter thread is a convenient size.
Don't think about not buying it!
 | | | | | Veteran Member Registered: March, 2007 Location: Toronto (for now) Posts: 1,748 | | Review Date: April 17, 2007 | Recommended | Price: $400.00
| Rating: 8 |
| Pros: | size, weight, sharpness, neutral colour, bokeh | | Cons: | build quality, dreadful AF performance. | |
I chose Pentax for the small system so after comparing this lens with the Sigma 105mm EX MACRO I decided to go with the Pentax. Very small and light (345 grams) compared to other marques. Tack sharp from f/4 - f/11 and still very good wide open at f/2.8. Virtually no distortion, vignetting or chromatic abberations. Excellent colour, very neutral and bokeh is creamy smooth.
Clamp locks focus to allow 'Back and forth' manual focusing technique. AF is slow and noisy, this is par for the course with macro lenses but the lack of a focus limiter is unforgivable as it results in severe hunting. Not as well built as the considerably heavier and larger Sigma 105mm MACRO. Optically one of my favourite lenses with clear and vibrant results I can rely on.
| | | | | Senior Member Registered: February, 2007 Location: Toronto Posts: 173
1 user found this helpful
| | Review Date: June 19, 2007 | Recommended | Price: $480.00
| Rating: 10 |
| Pros: | bokeh, speed, size, sharpness, contrast and overall IQ | | Cons: | lack of focus limiter maybe | |
IMO this is the best 100mm Macro lens to get for Pentax dSLR's. It is very compact and lighweight for a 100mm f/2.8 lens. It is perfectly fine wide-open and extremely sharp in the usual macro range of f/4-f/13 - its overall a very very good lens with superb IQ - great contrast, awesome (smooth and buttery) bokeh and lovely color rendition. The focus clamp is a very good idea and quick shift focusing is great and due to the large focusing reach manual focusing is very easy and precise. A focus limiter is lacking but even without it this lens deserves a 10 for its IQ and compact size/weight.
| | | | | | | Senior Member Registered: August, 2007 Location: Pittsburgh, PA Posts: 269 | | Review Date: August 21, 2007 | Recommended | Price: $389.00
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | Very sharp, nice bokeh | | Cons: | AF sometimes hunts around | |
The only weakness I have found with this lens is that the autofocus occasionally hunts around more than I would like. Otherwise, it performs just magnificently and I recommend it unreservedly.
| | | | | New Member Registered: June, 2007 Location: London Posts: 22
1 user found this helpful
| | Review Date: December 29, 2007 | Recommended | Price: $600.00
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | Sharpness, Superb manual focus ring, weight/balance, Great telephoto! | | Cons: | Struggles with AF, some CA with backlight | |
This is one of my 2 favourite lenses. I switched from the 50mm DFA macro initially thinking "hmm this thing is a bit plasticy" but I haven't looked back.
It's not just a macro lens!!! What I want to yell about the 100mm DFA macro is it's not just a macro lens. It's simply a KILLER telephoto/portrait lens. It's a piece of cake to manually focus precisely with the huge comfortable focusing ring, and on the K10D you end up with a perfectly balanced combo that is effortless to handhold at relatively slow shutter speeds. Do not underestimate the benefit of these two factors.
It does great macro - main difference between this and the 50mm is that you shoot from further away and you get less depth of field but a "flatter" image.
I've had occasional issues with colour fringing with brightly backlit subjects when taking tele shots, but I can live with that!
Combined with the 40mm Limited, this forms half of my "dynamic duo" of must-have lenses for the K10D.
| | | | | Veteran Member Registered: October, 2006 Location: Melbourne, Australia Posts: 11,783
1 user found this helpful
| | Review Date: January 28, 2008 | Recommended | Price: $350.00
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | Good contrast | | Cons: | Soft wide open, needs to step down to f4 to get decent images | | New or Used: New
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Besides what has been already mentioned, it is a lens to survive multiple trauma!!
I had this lens banging all the way down the stairs and nothing was cracked! I was absolutely amazed by this fact.
Some sample shots are shown here
My D FA 100mm f2.8 shots | | | | | Pentaxian Registered: March, 2008 Posts: 357
1 user found this helpful
| | Review Date: March 11, 2008 | Recommended | Price: $520.00
| Rating: 8 |
| Pros: | Light and sharp | | Cons: | AF hunts a lot, f2.8 not as sharp as previous 100 macros | |
Bought this to replace my F100 macro. AF hunts a lot and without the focus limiter, focus lock can be very slow to achieve. IQ wise, as good as any other 100 macro.
| | | | | Senior Member Registered: September, 2007 Location: melbourne, au Posts: 158 | | Review Date: July 25, 2008 | Recommended | Price: $390.00
| Rating: 8 |
| Pros: | sharpness, macro | | Cons: | focus hunt | | Sharpness: 10
Aberrations: 8
Bokeh: 8
Autofocus: 6
Handling: 9
Value: 9
New or Used: New
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this lens is so sharp, i love it, great for macros, but just as good for standard shots. the focus hunting is especially evident in low light, but an in focus shot is as good as it gets in my opinion.
| | | | | Veteran Member Registered: May, 2007 Location: Singapore Posts: 3,953
1 user found this helpful
| | Review Date: January 5, 2009 | Recommended | Price: $400.00
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | Sharp, contrasty, Quick shift, light weight | | Cons: | Build quality, no focus limiter | |
I also have the FA 100mm f/2.8 Macro as the basis for comparison. Optically it is sharp and contrasty and the Quick Shift is very useful. However I think Pentax went overboard redesigning this lens. Filter size is now 49mm (58mm on the FA version), which gives an indication of the reduction in size and weight. There is an over abundance of polycarbonate plastic and like the DFA 50mm, at max 1:1 the extended lens barrel wiggles ever so slightly, which doesn't inspire much confident in long term use. Overly large hood but needed to protect the extended lens barrel. Other than that, the lens serves well as a macro and tele. Rate it 8.5 as it is outclassed by similar macro lenses from other makes.
| | | | | Veteran Member Registered: February, 2009 Location: egypt Posts: 435 | | Review Date: February 7, 2009 | Recommended | Price: $520.00
| Rating: 10 |
| Pros: | great in macro,portrait | | Cons: | na | |
it is the best in the macro range.
ibought it for macro issues but i find it is very sharp in portrait.
light,sharp results,excellent colors.
| | | | | Inactive Account Registered: September, 2007 Location: Belgium Posts: 18 | | Review Date: February 11, 2009 | Recommended | Price: $500.00
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | Sharp, delivers near-perfect images | | Cons: | none | |
I rated this lens a 10 because :
- It delivers some of the sharpest images i've seen.
Results are very close to the quality of my Pentax-M lenses.
(Pentax-M 50mm 1.4 and Pentax-M 100mm 2.8)
- I don't really care about "build quality" but the build quality seems decent enough to me. I think it's not easy to break this lens.
- AF sometimes chases around (and only in low light), but it's still a HUGE IMPROVEMENT (speed and accuracy) over the AF on my DA* 16-50mm with the crappy SDM AF.
In low light I also tend to use manual focus anyway.
- It's a true macro lens, while also being a very usefull portrait lens
| | | | | | | | Review Date: February 26, 2009 | Recommended | Price: $450.00
| Rating: 10 |
| Pros: | sharp, contrast, handling | | Cons: | none | |
I bought this lens as a Schneider-Kreuznach, but its exactly the same as the Pentax DFA. I think the lens isn't nearly perfect, it is perfect. Look at this picture, this was my first one with this nice glass.
 | | | | | Site Supporter Registered: March, 2009 Location: Washington, USA Posts: 85 | | Review Date: April 1, 2009 | Recommended | Price: $450.00
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | exceptional image quality, lightweight | | Cons: | fragility when fully extended | |
It's interesting to see the criticism brand lenses receive versus the slack third party glass gets. If I was to trust the online noise, image is smeared wide open, autofocus sloppy and hunts, built is no good, Tamron/Sigma are better in all regards, etc. Fortunately I confided my good sense and went ahead with the purchase - and am not disappointed in the least.
Image quality is truly exceptional both at close and normal range. Resolution is excellent wide open and by f/4 it out-resolves the K20D sensor. Bokeh is very smooth at all apertures, no double images, no hard edged halos at any distance. It's also the most consistent lens across the image frame I've ever used. Also, resolution and lack of chroma aberration holds up very well when adding additional extension. I have pushed the lens to 2:1 without any image quality loss.
Autofocus is very precise both with K10D and K20D (no compensation needed) and the ability to quickly adjust the focus manually largely alleviates the lack of focus range lock.
P-TTL flash exposure with this lens must be the most accurate I've seen - I just don't need to compensate flash output anymore.
I've also seen reports about the disproportionate and redundant hood the lens comes with. In my experience the hood is truly a must in macro work as it protects not so much against light rays (front glass element is already receded) as it prevents bumps in the rather fragile inner tube that extends at 1:1 to almost twice the lens size. And that may be my only criticism of the lens, but if this is the price to pay for an extremely lightweight, high optical quality macro I can take in any hike or climb - then so be it.
Ah, I need something more to justify the 9 grade  : my sample - at least - focuses just a tad beyond infinity, enough to compromise the sharpness at any aperture. It's said to be expected for an AF lens that has to cope with a wide temperature range, etc. - but I can swear that when I originally got the lens (new), infinity and end of focus throw coincided.
| | | | | | | | Review Date: June 9, 2009 | Recommended | Price: $150.00
| Rating: 8 |
| Pros: | image quality, size | | Cons: | focus limiter, focus limiter, focus limiter | |
Love this lens and it lives on my camera. Image quality is superb and it is beautifully compact. If only it had a focus limiter!
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