Pentaxian Registered: August, 2007 Location: Toronto Posts: 797 | | Review Date: January 8, 2008 | Recommended | Price: $60.00
| Rating: 7 |
| Pros: | Great colour, very sharp in the centre, light weight, excellent price/performance. | | Cons: | No distance scale, front element rotates, flimsy manual focus ring. | |
The proof is in the pudding -- pictures taken with this lens look great. If you pixel peep, it is softer in the corners. But overall the resolution is good, contrast is crisp and the colours are great. I am always knocked out by how saturated the colours are -- using a polarizer, the colours are almost TOO saturated!
Autofocus is not as quick as other consumer zooms I have had -- the 18-35 FAJ, the 35-80 F, and the Nikon 28-80 G have all been faster.
Manual focus is the poorest aspect, with sloppy focus ring and no scale. Pity, because this lens is the perfect accompaniment to the MZ-M -- in weight, size, focal lengths and silver colour. Still, the IQ is good so I keep using it.
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Veteran Member Registered: February, 2007 Location: Phoenix Posts: 1,056 | | Review Date: March 5, 2007 | Recommended | Price: $20.00
| Rating: 6 |
| Pros: | inexpensive, quick AF, surprisingly good IQ | | Cons: | build quality, plastic mount, MF capability | |
I found this when looking for an inexpensive autofocus zoom lens to supplement the assortment of old primes I normally use. Although my expectations were pretty low, this lens has surprisingly good image quality, especially at intermediate apertures. The autofocus is fast and accurate, but with a short depth of field it can have a hard time focusing on the correct subject. The focus ring is very sloppy, so the focus is hard to tweak manually. Not surprisingly the housing is made of cheap plastic, but I was surprised that even the bayonet mount is plastic, which makes me question its durability. However, since it was only US$20 I don't lose a lot of sleep over it.
Overall a surprisingly good, inexpensive, lightweight AF zoom lens. It's the one I reach for when I go from Photographer composing Photographs to just a dad taking quick snapshots of his kid.
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Administrator Registered: September, 2006 Location: Copenhagen, Denmark Posts: 4,408 | | Review Date: January 7, 2007 | Recommended | Price: $50.00
| Rating: 7 |
| Pros: | Value for money. Very light. Pictures crisp and sharp. | | Cons: | Plastic bayonet. Build quality so-so. | |
The smc Pentax-FA 28-90mm f/3.5-5.6 is an inexpensive zoom lens and it often came bundled with a Pentax film SLR. It performs rather well considering that it was priced below $100. It is an auto-focus zoom and can be focused manually despite the lack of a distance scale. The lens barrel and lens mount are made of plastic and build quality is below average - even the bayonet is made of plastic. In return it weighs only 195 grams. It comes with no lens hood and you must take care to avoid flare when shooting backlit objects.
I prefer the FA 24-90 over the FA 28-90. The 24-90 is better built and goes down to 24mm, which is significant in particular on a digital body.
I would rate it 5 or 6 for build quality, but it takes sharp and contrasty pictures, so the rating for optical quality is at least an 8 giving an overall rating of 7.
Sample photos:
http://themotec.com/Ole/WEB_Gallery20/ | |
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