| Author: | | Loyal Site Supporter Registered: June, 2013 Location: Utrecht Posts: 255
5 users found this helpful
| | Review Date: August 8, 2019 | Recommended | Price: $20.00
| Rating: 10 |
| Pros: | Build quality, equal sharp over the frame, no aberations | | Cons: | Bit less micro contrast compared with M1.7 & M1.4 | | Sharpness: 9
Aberrations: 10
Bokeh: 9
Handling: 10
Value: 10
Camera Used: K2 to K1ii
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Very good performer from corner to corner. Wide open it is a bit soft. You only need to boost levels/contrast a bit in post for brilliant pictures. Long throw for focusing, it goes very precise. Build to last forever.
I got this as kit lens together with my 2nd hand K2 20 years ago. For both I paid € 75,-.
See also https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/10-pentax-slr-lens-discussion/390869-som...-compared.html
Original test report 1975
 | | | | | | | Forum Member Registered: December, 2009 Posts: 94
3 users found this helpful
| | Review Date: October 23, 2020 | Recommended | Price: $45.00
| Rating: 10 |
| Pros: | something special | | Cons: | | | Sharpness: 9
Aberrations: 9
Bokeh: 9
Handling: 10
Value: 10
Camera Used: K-1
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This lens is special to me, something in the rendering, or contrast, i can't really pinpoint it.
My copy is mint and flawless. Handling is incredible.
 | | | | | Junior Member Registered: December, 2009 Posts: 25
3 users found this helpful
| | Review Date: June 2, 2017 | Recommended
| Rating: 10 |
| Pros: | excellent colors, fast, looks, built | | Cons: | none | | Sharpness: 9
Aberrations: 9
Bokeh: 8
Handling: 9
Value: 10
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Just received one today. Portraits at f1.8-f2.8 are awesome. Colors of sky and flowers are superb. This lens is a bargain.
On K-50
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f1.8
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f 1.8 - 1/160 - ISO100 +2EV
SOOC JPG NO PP
© foivosloxias June 2017
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f 2.8 - 1/250 - ISO100
SOOC JPG NO PP
© foivosloxias June 2017
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f 1.8 - 1/200 - ISO1000
SOOC JPG NO PP
© foivosloxias August 2017
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[f 1.8 - 1/60 - ISO1000]
© foivosloxias August 2017
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[f 1.8 - 1/50 - ISO1000]
© foivosloxias August 2017
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[f 2.8 - 1/80 - ISO400]
© foivosloxias August 2017
 | | | | | Forum Member Registered: December, 2012 Location: Warsaw Posts: 83
3 users found this helpful
| | Review Date: May 25, 2014 | Recommended | Price: $55.00
| Rating: 10 |
| Pros: | Very sharp, fast, creamy bokeh, build quality, feel, looks goood on modern DSLR's, on APS sensor makes a dream @85mm f/1,8 lens (actually 55x1,5=@82,5mm). On top of it its cheap and widely available. | | Cons: | ....... could be SMC-A...... and AF..... and.....NAH!!!! | |
Absolutely brilliant lens that due to its wide availability is still ridiculously cheap. Build quality, handling feel is just second to none SMC-K/ Takumar type. The look of K-type lenses on modern DSLR's (which are the size of K-type SLR's) is so goood - after you try them SMC-M lenses, in comparison look to small and funny (with all regard to their optical quality).
As for the IQ - check Yoshihiko Takinami resolution charts to see that you will never ever need to check it again. Just go and use it!!!
The lens is tack-sharp!!! At f/1,8-2 equals theSMC-K 50mm f/1,2.
http://www.takinami.com/yoshihiko/photo/lens_test/pentax_normal.html
As I already wrote - on crop sensor this lens makes an amazing equivalent to: 85mm f/1,8 dream portrait glass!!!
It is actually 82,5mm, but as with real 85mm you can go all day and never be tired of using it. Finding great pictures is so fun and easy!!!
I highly recommend this lens to anyone, who is not afraid of a manual glass.
P.S.: If you want to have a more flexible version - buy a SMC Takumar 55mm f/2 or f/1,8. At P or A - you will have a TTL (working aperture) real time metering that doesn't require the use of a GREEN BUTTON.
Do remember that f/2 and f/1,8 seems to be actually identical lenses with only difference in aperture ring clicks placement. You can set a f/2 lens one click beyond f/2....... so. Buy any of them.
| | | | | | | Otis Memorial Pentaxian Registered: March, 2007 Location: Vancouver (USA) Posts: 42,007
3 users found this helpful
| | Review Date: June 4, 2013 | Recommended | Price: $35.00
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | Contrast, sharpness, build | | Cons: | ummm...I am thinking... | | Sharpness: 10
Aberrations: 9
Bokeh: 8
Handling: 8
Value: 10
Camera Used: K10D, Various K-mount film cameras
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I can't believe that I had not yet submitted a review for this lens. I have had it for several years after buying it as part of a KX (film camera) package and generally consider it to be my best "fast 50". As noted above, the K 55/1.8 is similar to the SMC/S-M-C/Super Takumar 55/1.8 in terms of its optical performance with the added convenience of having the K bayonet mount. I use mine primarily as a normal len for film photography on the KX, but occasionally press it into service on the K10D.
A small word about bokeh. I only rated this lens an 8. That is not because there is any particular fault in the out-of-focus rendering. Rather, it is because I have other 50mm lenses that excel in that regard.
My summary assessment is that it is hard to find better value in a 50-55mm K-mount lens. The performance to price quotient is right up there with the somewhat cheaper M 50/1.7 but with visibly better performance. If you need a fast 50 and find one in decent condition at a price you can afford, buy it. You won't be sorry.
Captured on one of the last rolls of Kodachrome produced.
| | | | | Veteran Member Registered: April, 2012 Location: Melbs Posts: 1,240
3 users found this helpful
| | Review Date: September 30, 2012 | Recommended | Price: $60.00
| Rating: 10 |
| Pros: | Romantic | | Cons: | Romantic | | Sharpness: 8
Aberrations: 8
Bokeh: 8
Handling: 8
Value: 8
Camera Used: K10d
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K series, M series, FA, Tak, who really cares honestly? The fact of the matter is it's a 55mm K mount that looks boring, but smells and feel exquisite.
Feels? really? Yes. All this nonsense of it being butter smooth. correct! And when you are dealing with fast lenses you need the focus to be quick and easy.
Compared to focusing on a Helios 44m for example. Focusing is more an event.  You have to pre torque your fingers in grip in order to take the weight of the thing if you are going to focus is quickly. With this little thing, you just blow at it and it falls into line.
That never really bothered me with the Helios to be honest. But its important! If you want anyone to be in focus under a single meter at f1.8 you had better be able to move that ring quickly. and thank Christ you can.
Its a bit scary but i haven't come across a poor focusing pentax M, K, or Tak piece of glass. Even the dirty ones that look like they have been buried in mud for the past 20yrs still are smooth.
Why am I talking about a focus ring? Because it's important.
Optically you already know what its like. It's Good. Sharp everywhere and with that bullsh1t "painterly quality" you often hear in reference to the Taks. Ie.. its blend from in and out of focus (I cant believe I'm even caring about such a thing) coupled with its small depth of field, along with its ability to be sharp at 1.8 for peats sake, makes things look dam pretty.
Now, contrary to popular belief, this doesn't transform into a 80mm+ lens when used on a crop sensor. The depth relations (being of 55mm) are retained. You are getting physically lens image tho as it has a Field of View comparable to a traditional 80+mm lens when used on said crop body.
80mm+ lens are fun for portraits because of the flattening that occurs to shapes around the composition.. This lens has the flattening if you will (or depth relationship) of a 55mm.
So don't buy this thinking its a 80mm lens. Its not. Its a 55mm lens with the Field of View reduced to a 80mm odd lens when used on a crop body.
Who cares? I'm not sure. Whats the point? It just annoys me shirtless when ppl run around in circles exclaiming to have found this mystical portrait lens of qualities that would make Babylon itself weep..
This actually brings me back to the fact that I listed it as being romantic as both a positive, and a negative. I mean, it's a lens. It's not going to cure your marriage and it's not going to turn you into Picasso. In order to describe that mystical quality tho, that feeling of itchiness when using it, that shortened gate you have when running after that blonde in the street with those heals whom would have made a wonderful political statement if she has just stayed under the do not eat meat sign long enough.. That care you have walking through an antique store... Well it's all apparent when you use it.
It's romantic because it controls you, and it's romantic because you love submitting to its stupid requests at 2am in the morning even tho you know the dog has water but she insists it "looked" empty when she was half asleep sleeping walking through the kitchen some hours earlier.
Sigh.
Just take photos with the dam thing.
ISO 800, f1.8 s1/20th f8ck all light, yet still sharp enough to show bits of her hair. This also shows the shallow depth of field you are using and why being able to cycle through the focus ring quickly is uber uber uber important :P In this case.. I wasn't quick enough. I wanted the scarf to be the focal point with the hair getting softer and softer as it bleed into the gold and earthy tones behind it.
Nickers. Just because I can. ISO1600 this time with f1.8 again, still usable even with all that noise. Awesome.
Now for some colour. f2, iso100, s=1/20th
Sif you'd buy a new one.
| | | | | New Member Registered: April, 2019 Location: Dublin Posts: 4
2 users found this helpful
| | Review Date: April 19, 2019 | Recommended | Price: $35.00
| Rating: 10 |
| Pros: | Very impressive quality for portraits, easy to focus, relatively cheap. | | Cons: | n/a | | Sharpness: 9
Aberrations: 9
Bokeh: 9
Handling: 10
Value: 10
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Have got it just couple of months ago specifically for my new Fuji X-E3. Main purpose was to shoot portraits as I had previous experience with other ~50mm Pentax lenses and love them a lot. Can't really choose which ones I love more: Helios 44-2, Konica AR 50mm f/1.7 or my Pentax lenses (Pentax-M and Pentax-A 50mm f/1.7 and the latest one, Pentax SMC 55mm f/1.8). They all are great, easy to disassemble and clean, and unique in their own way.
Never tried any scientific tests as don't care about 'razor sharpness' - it is not important for my shooting requirements or preferences. I do care more about how easy to focus, handling and of course - my personal impression regarding imaging quality.
Here I have one photo as an example. May be someone will find it useful in the same way I found many reviews on this website. Thanks everyone for sharing their experience! 
Day light, wide opened - f/1.8, camera Fuji X-E3, ACROS film simulation. No further postprocessing.  | | | | | New Member Registered: January, 2014 Posts: 15
2 users found this helpful
| | Review Date: September 12, 2017 | Recommended
| Rating: 7 |
| Pros: | | | Cons: | | | Sharpness: 7
Aberrations: 5
Bokeh: 5
Handling: 8
Value: 8
Camera Used: K-5
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Nice build and pretty sharp too when you nail the focus.
 | | | | | Senior Member Registered: September, 2013 Posts: 283
2 users found this helpful
| | Review Date: November 17, 2016 | Recommended | Price: $75.00
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | colors are beautiful, well built, lovely bokeh | | Cons: | I haven't had good luck with skin tones in portraits, could be my editing | | Sharpness: 9
Aberrations: 8
Bokeh: 9
Handling: 10
Value: 8
Camera Used: K-3
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My favorite lens for flowers or colorful still lifes. Love the rendering. Smooth focusing and sturdy build. As of now I prefer it over the A 50 1.4, but I've spent more time with the K 55 1.8.
 IMGP0622 by Brady Burmeister, on Flickr
 IMGP1936 by Brady Burmeister, on Flickr
 IMGP2070 by Brady Burmeister, on Flickr
| | | | | Pentaxian Registered: September, 2013 Location: Phoenix, AZ Posts: 1,070
2 users found this helpful
| | Review Date: December 13, 2014 | Recommended | Price: $52.00
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | Sharp, small size, good build quality, smooth focus | | Cons: | Stop down metering | | Sharpness: 9
Aberrations: 9
Bokeh: 8
Handling: 9
Value: 9
Camera Used: K30
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This lens is sharp enough and very usable wide open as long as you nail the focus. This was a critical attribute this lens needed to have in order to stay in my camera bag. I bought mine as a bargain lens from KEH and with shipping came out to about $52. It has some dust in it but it doesn't affect the picture quality, and it has a little finish loss in some places that gives it some character. As far as value goes for the condition mine is in and the quality of the photos it produces, I would rate it a 9/10. The focusing is very smooth and I am able to focus it quickly enough to still get great results. I do use a viewfinder magnifier. I took this photo today with this lens, shot wide open, with some post processing done in photoshop:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/adudenamedjosh/15987737986/in/photostream/
I was able to focus it quickly and accurately enough to get more in focus shots than I thought I would. Might I add it is not easy to get a close up of a chicken at f1.8 when they only want to run around and dig for worms!
Here is another one wide open at f1.8: https://www.flickr.com/photos/adudenamedjosh/15772880500/in/photostream/
And a shot with the sun near the edge of the frame, also wide open and no post processing at all: https://www.flickr.com/photos/adudenamedjosh/15960149475/in/photostream/
I slightly missed focus on the gate handle, the focus point is actually to the left on the fence.
These were all taken around f4, and shows how sharp this lens gets when stopped down:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/adudenamedjosh/15917463590/in/photostream/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/adudenamedjosh/15956568940/in/photostream/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/adudenamedjosh/15934377176/in/photostream/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/adudenamedjosh/15521528564/in/photostream/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/adudenamedjosh/16141966391/in/photostream/
The biggest con for me is not being able to use auto iso with this lens, due to having to push the green button and perform stop down metering. Another con is that when stopped down 1-4 clicks from wide open, the bokeh becomes a circular saw shaped pattern instead of perfectly rounded circles when having out of focus lights in the background at night. For this reason I had to drop the lens' bokeh rating. Wide open, though, this isn't a problem and I think the bokeh is great. I bought this lens to use wide open anyways, and it can be focused very accurately with my K30's "catch in focus" mode activated. All in all it's a nice sharp manual focus lens that has a lot of character, and is worth picking up if you are willing to work with its limitations.
| | | | | New Member Registered: March, 2014 Location: lamia , greece Posts: 13
2 users found this helpful
| | | | | Veteran Member Registered: November, 2012 Posts: 963
2 users found this helpful
| | Review Date: June 18, 2013 | Recommended | Price: $60.00
| Rating: N/A |
| Pros: | Very sharp! | | Cons: | Nothing. | | Sharpness: 10
Aberrations: 8
Bokeh: 9
Handling: 10
Value: 10
Camera Used: KX
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This lens is even sharper than the already sharp M50 f1.7.
Its sharpness is closely comparable to my FA43. (The OOF rendering is way behind though). The focal length takes getting used to as it's quite on the long side for indoor shots.
Bokeh is creamy wide open. Past 2.8 the creamy bokeh gives way to somewhat odd-shaped pointed starbursts! This can be used as an "effect" but one may wish to avoid too by avoiding direct lights.
It's not as warm as the limiteds, but it has character, when I need a sharp 50, this girl gets the call. The build is great, and focusing is easy.
This lens has actually kept me from getting the DA*55.
| | | | | Pentaxian Registered: December, 2012 Location: Seattle, WA USA Posts: 1,753
2 users found this helpful
| | Review Date: June 3, 2013 | Recommended | Price: $60.00
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | Sharp, fast, colors, quality | | Cons: | Very few. Hexagonal bokah in mid-apertures with backlight | | Sharpness: 8
Aberrations: 9
Bokeh: 8
Handling: 10
Value: 10
Camera Used: K5ii
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This lens is ruining all other 50's for me. I've picked up and let go a few very highly regarded ones. The K55/1.8 just does it for me. Great bokah wide open. Sharper at 1.8 than the K50/1.4 is at 1.4 and maybe f2. After that, they start to get similar, but the K55 (mine at least) always has a little more contrast/sharpness/magic. In the viewfinder, it seems somehow brighter and more clear. I just love this lens.
I shoot a lot of music venue stuff (friends, dark bars, bad or no stage lighting and a few nice jazz clubs). It does plenty great in low light.
I documented my tests and neurosis testing this against the K50/1.4 here:
https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/10-pentax-slr-lens-discussion/229434-shoo...k55-1-8-a.html
Both fine lenses, with slightly different qualities.
| | | | | Inactive Account Registered: October, 2010 Location: Baltimore Posts: 2,542
2 users found this helpful
| | Review Date: November 8, 2011 | Recommended | Price: $45.00
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | Sharp - Colors - Contrast | | Cons: | None really | |
This may be the sharpest 50mm-ish lens I own. Super super sharp even wide open, colors rendered are bright and clear, bokeh is superb. It is larger than the Pentax-M 50, A 50 and Super Takumars, focusing and build is great!
9 is just about the highest I would give a non AF lens, so just consider this a 10 for a manual lens!!!
 | | | | | Veteran Member Registered: July, 2010 Posts: 2,395
2 users found this helpful
| | Review Date: August 17, 2010 | Recommended | Price: $50.00
| Rating: 10 |
| Pros: | Smooth MF, great with low light, beautiful 3D bokeh at low apertures, deals well with flare, good colour, etc. etc. | | Cons: | all manual can slow you down | |
The focus ring and aperture ring are superb on this lens. I find my self focusing "just for fun" because it is so smooth. The focus ring is very long, making fine-focusing relatively easy. This lens feels much more like a fine instrument than my A series lenses.
The images are superb. I find a minimum of f1.8 on a dSLR completely unrestrictive, and rarely need to go above ISO 800. This thing is a light vacuum. It may seem so sharp because of the ASP-C advantage, but on any digital, I can tell you that center sharpness at f2 is really really good. Bokeh is super smooth at lower apertures... at f4 OOF begins to look fairly hexagonal, but only for really bright background lights. Portraits at wider apertures are buttery smooth.
It is a great poor-man's portrait lens. The 5mm over a 50mm make a difference... this is closer to the classic 85mm length on film. IQ for the money is unbeatable in my experience.
I typically set the lens to f2.8, meter, and just shoot away. The lens makes me look good. "All manual" might SEEM daunting, but realistically, you will just smile with this set at f2.8. Perfect depth of field, perspective, and rendering for people.
Stop it down to f8 and you can do the landscape thing.
1 mark off for the strong hexagons in OOF areas = 9/10. Great lens  .
EDIT:
I've been with this lens now for well over a year. I sold an FA 50 and A 50 1.7 in favor of it.
It went head to head with the DA 70 and came close enough to the quality seen from the FA 77, but I actually find the 55mm focal length preferable.
Call me crazy, but I sold the FA 77. I honestly, cannot believe, how good pictures look from this little gem. It's not a perfect lens by any means, but arguably neither is a much-lauded lens like the FA 77 (lots of fringing with that one).
On the most basic measures - sharpness, bokeh rendering, colour, and ergonomics, this is two steps away from the quality of a limited. You have to meter yourself, focus yourself, but in the process, you save enough money to buy a box full of lenses.
The most obvious failing of this lens is that it is just not as sharp as a limited wide open, nor stopped down to f2.8. But, if you are not a pixel peeper, the difference in sharpness would not matter for moderate sized prints, and would be negligible for large prints. Honestly. The overall *rendering* of this lens outshines any minor technical failing... and personally, I just love, love, love 55mm.
This is my number one people lens. I'm not the best at manual focus... but I will get better. Everything else about this lens is just phenomenal.
For portraits, this thing is just amazing, and overall my favorite pictures have come from this lens... landscapes, scenes, portraits, you name it. Sure, it's all manual, and flash can be tricky, but the results always make me smile. The bokeh is really unique (in a similar fashion to the FA limiteds), the sharpness is great, but maybe most importantly for a lens of this type, the focusing ring allows me to pop into focus with amazing accuracy. The FA 50 1.4, nor A 50 1.7, allowed for this kind of manual focus accuracy. I even prefer the feel to the FA 77, but realistically, autofocus was speedier than my manual focusing abilities anyway.
I'm bumping this lens to a 10. Maybe it's not a *true* 10, like the FA 77 or DA* 55, but for 1/20th the price, it's so damn close that I think it's worthy.
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