| Author: | | Loyal Site Supporter Registered: September, 2009 Location: Phoenix, AZ Posts: 7,594
2 users found this helpful
| | Review Date: December 23, 2019 | Recommended
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | Fast, silent, bokeh | | Cons: | Heavy | | Sharpness: 10
Aberrations: 9
Bokeh: 9
Autofocus: 10
Handling: 8
Value: 9
New or Used: New
Camera Used: K-1/K-1ii
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I remain ambivalent about this lens. I have purchased and sold it and then repurchased. As the photos posted here show it makes excellent images. But there is a cost and that is the size, weight and price. I also have the old DA*55 which vignettes a bit on FF, hesitates sometimes when focusing and occasionally shows some color fringing. But that lens is small and light compared to the DFA and usually will produce images that are almost as good as the DFA. I intend to keep working with and learning about the DFA but I find I grab the DA* more often. Best positive is it is an outstanding modern lens made by Pentax so we should encourage them by buying it if it is in our budget and we need a modern lens of this quality.
| | | | | | | New Member Registered: February, 2018 Posts: 21 | | Review Date: November 19, 2019 | Recommended | Price: $899.00
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | Sharpness, bokeh | | Cons: | CA | | Sharpness: 10
Aberrations: 7
Bokeh: 10
Autofocus: 10
Handling: 10
Value: 9
New or Used: New
Camera Used: K1
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Very nice lens, very cost-effective compared to the Canon RF50 and Panasonic 50/1.4. A shot that Pentax K1 users can't miss
| | | | | Veteran Member Registered: December, 2007 Location: Prague Posts: 1,199
2 users found this helpful
| | Review Date: November 4, 2019 | Recommended | Price: $1,200.00
| Rating: 10 |
| Pros: | simply amazing | | Cons: | only available for K-mount | |
I thought I do not need this lens.
I had FA*85, FA35 and DFA50/2,8 as fast primes and adding another 50mm was not in my plan.
I used to have FA50/1,4 which I sold, because it was quite disappointing.
I tried A*50/1,2 and DA*55 borrowed from my friends and while these were a lot better, I did not think I needed those.
Then another friend borrowed me this lens and I was immediately fascinated by it.
Before, I thought he was crazy for buying it, because 50mm so expensive and heavy made no sense to me. But then I understood and ordered my own.
On K-1 body this lens seems adequate is size and for me being used to DFA24-70 it does not feel too heavy.
The AF works like nothing else I tried in the Pentax realm, precise and fast. Even at f1.4 I can use AF expecting to have about 2/3 of photos usable and about 1/4 in perfect focus. That is not possible with FA*85. This lens does miracles shooting little children, which I do most of the time lately.
Stopped down it's as sharp as the other DFA50, which I regarded as my sharpest lens.
It's not an APO, but the fringing is pretty limited compared to for example the FA*85. Even in the bokeh.
Quite simply a brilliant lens. I only regret it does not come in EF mount, my wife would appreciate lens like this for her Canon.
| | | | | Senior Member Registered: April, 2013 Posts: 298
15 users found this helpful
| | Review Date: May 9, 2019 | Recommended
| Rating: 10 |
| Pros: | Everything apart from the Negative Aspects | | Cons: | Weight and Size | | Sharpness: 10
Aberrations: 10
Bokeh: 10
Handling: 10
Value: 10
New or Used: New
Camera Used: APSC KP
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There have been some reviews lately about this lens (here and at dpreview). I find these review mostly not capturing what such a lens is about. Very technical and generic discussions.
If you need a wide aperture normal lens, this is a great option. The lens is a beautiful lens. The handling makes you like to handle it. None of the older lenses compares to it. The bokeh is magical.
A few images, mostly wide open.
 | | | | | | | Senior Member Registered: March, 2019 Location: Elyria, Ohio Posts: 118 | | Review Date: April 8, 2019 | Recommended | Price: $996.00
| Rating: 10 |
| Pros: | Incredibly Sharp | | Cons: | Don't know yet | | Sharpness: 10
Aberrations: 10
Bokeh: 10
Autofocus: 10
Handling: 10
Value: 10
New or Used: New
Camera Used: Pentax K-1
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https://flic.kr/p/2e4T9ya | | | | | Junior Member Registered: January, 2018 Location: Tokyo Posts: 44
2 users found this helpful
| | Review Date: April 8, 2019 | Recommended | Price: $900.00
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | Sharp, solid, silent. | | Cons: | Heavy, lacking manual aperture ring. | | Sharpness: 10
Aberrations: 10
Bokeh: 8
Autofocus: 7
Handling: 9
Value: 10
New or Used: New
Camera Used: Pentax K-1ii
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Behold the beast! This lens is a tool from another world (I haven't tried ZEISS Otus 1.4/55 yet, so I can't really say the last word, but...). I got it on December and I used it a while during my holiday in Italy, but I realized it does not let handle itself easily as other lenses or like I expected (beside not being me a frequent 50mm user and having some issue with this angle of view - I prefer 28~30mm or beyond 60mm). So, I am giving it time to grow on me. It is a cold, merciless perfection delivering machine that knows no compromises. You need to have a god-like pre-visualizing skill of what you are doing AND your subject need to be flawless, or it will teach you all the misery and imperfection of material existence. Particularly at f1.4. It gathers so much detail that nor you nor any viewer can actually enjoy it if not cropping the image to get close to the individual pixels. It just stay hidden into the image and it provides it a mystic glow/patina of beauty.The same single-point autofocus of K1 is unfit IMO to handle its precision: I mean, you have to decide between the pupil or few millimeters away from the eyelid...and you can't, because the small square pointer is too large and you do not know what it will end up choosing for you! We could really enjoy a sound focusing system on K-1 like in Hasselblad! Jokes aside, when you start getting handy and you nail it, there you get the bee's knees... the big-bang of beauty perfection. I am pretty sure no model will like this lens... human appearance is too fallacious to afford facing a portrait with it lightheartedly. As said, it has its learning curve (a long one) to use it and to understand what it can/will do before you fire the shutter, but it delivers the incredible. A bit low on contrast/saturation, perhaps, for my tastes...? Sometimes with an interesting green glow/halo from longitudinal chromatic aberration on the subject under certain situations (but you have to dive into the image to see it). It seems to me to be a characteristic of Pentax lenses (and one I like much).
https://www.flickr.com/photos/liveactionhero/32617959167/in/dateposted-public/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/liveactionhero/40594521793/in/dateposted-public/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/liveactionhero/40594522193/in/dateposted-public/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/liveactionhero/46370565764/in/dateposted-public/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/liveactionhero/40152630243/in/dateposted-public/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/liveactionhero/40152630243/in/dateposted-public/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/liveactionhero/46128064615/in/dateposted-public/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/liveactionhero/46368851535/in/dateposted-public/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/liveactionhero/40310850713/in/dateposted-public/ | | | | | New Member Registered: August, 2018 Posts: 5
4 users found this helpful
| | Review Date: April 3, 2019 | Recommended | Price: $1,000.00
| Rating: 10 |
| Pros: | Almost everything | | Cons: | big and heavy, a small amount of chromatic ab green/red/purple at wide apertures and high contrast transitions | | Sharpness: 10
Aberrations: 8
Bokeh: 10
Autofocus: 10
Handling: 7
Value: 10
New or Used: New
Camera Used: K1
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Unbelievable lens - the best lens I've ever shot (and I've shot a *lot* of lenses from the 1950's era to current). This is a quick shot of my cat (overcast day even). F1.6, quick autofocus. I'm going to have to sell my 1950 Zeiss 58mm Biotar and my 50mm f1.4 8 element Takumar. Pentax + Tokina really did an amazing job building a cost-is-no-object world class lens - Happy 100th birthday Pentax! Check out the sharpness and out of focus and completely natural color. Slight foreground chromatic aberration in the metal grid in front of the cat's paws:
Overall after comparing results, this new 50mm is better than the 1950 Zeiss 58mm f2 Biotar, the 1964 50mm f1.4 8 element Tak and the 1970s era 50mm f4 Macro Tak which I also currently own. Sharpness is great on all when stopped down but the improvement is most obvious at the tougher wider apertures f2.8 and below, chromatic aberrations are good in all (sometimes very slightly worse in the newest one) but contrast is always best on the new 50 by varying margins depending on how close to the sun you shoot. While flare can be used for creative artistic shots and be superior in those cases, in general I avoid it and of course it can be added in post but not easily taken away. Autofocus, weather sealing and the coatings are the biggest areas of improvement when comparing to these similar focal length lenses from the past 70 years. Size and weight have gotten steadily worse so if you are backpacking, take the 1950 Zeiss 58mm f2 which is a tiny jewel of a lens with great results if not shooting into the sun. The flare difference in images (all shot at f4 with sun just outside upper right frame with a lens hood):
2019 Pentax 50mm f1.4 HD AW 
1950 Zeiss 58mm f2
1964 Takumar 50mm f1.4 8 element
1970's Takumar 50mm f4 Macro 1:2 (Tessar)
The above is a stress test to show the biggest optical differences as the lens options have gotten better (flare), but as I mentioned, the size and weight of equivalent focal length lenses has grown enormously. The 1950 Zeiss 58mm is an early tiny M42 mount jewel that you can hide in your fist and is great for low weight and has gorgeous results when not shooting so close into the sun and when stopping down. Check out the natural color and fantastic sharpness in this sample shot with the oldie (based on the serial number, I think this lens was made in the East German area after the war just as the Cold War was beginning and was built using parts eventually rescued by the Russians from the Dresden factory after the war. The Allies had bombed it in the infamous Dresden bombing. Interestingly, I bought this lens from a guy in Russia - via Ebay): 1950 58mm Biotar f2
crop of bird in photo above (sharper Raw, this is a JPEG): 1950 58mm Biotar f2
Update: I kept the 1950 f2 Biotar 58mm for its portability to complement the 50mm 1.4 FA D. I also kept my 300mm f4 which is a very very nice Pentax lens that I've sent in and had repaired when the autofocus failed. I sold all my other lenses on Ebay.
Another update: over time I've noticed that manual focus has a slight design issue. It is too stiff. I noticed that the initial release of the lens was delayed and in the interview with the lead of product engineering he mentioned the work they did to get the tension for the focus just right. A trick you can use is to avoid "gripping" the focus ring tightly. If you do that, it is very hard to turn. I find if I put my hand lightly under the focus ring and ensure I don't "grip" it much at all, it is more manageable. Note that the new 85mm doesn't have any issue with stiff manual focus.
| | | | | Senior Member Registered: June, 2018 Posts: 220
2 users found this helpful
| | Review Date: March 21, 2019 | Recommended
| Rating: 10 |
| Pros: | Sharp, Outstanding Compression, Beautiful Bokeh, Smooth Focusing | | Cons: | Heavy | | Sharpness: 10
Aberrations: 9
Bokeh: 10
Autofocus: 8
Handling: 8
Value: 9
New or Used: New
Camera Used: K-1II
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With the exception of size and weight (which is entirely subjective), this is a FANTASTIC lens that has exceeded all my expectations. The center sharpness of this lens at f/1.4 is incredible. Beautiful compression and the Bokeh is perfectly round (no hexagons, cats eyes, etc.) and creamy. Lovely colors and contrast.
In certain settings in bright light, some slight CA at f/1.4. Nothing egregious and easily addressed in Lightroom.
Focusing is smooth and quiet. It's not going to win any races, but it won't leave you frustrated and annoyed. Calibration was needed with my lens/body combination.
f/1.4
f/2.2
f/4
f/5.6
 | | | | | Pentaxian Registered: April, 2007 Location: Toronto/Victoria Posts: 460
2 users found this helpful
| | Review Date: February 4, 2019 | Recommended | Price: $1,050.00
| Rating: 10 |
| Pros: | Outstanding IQ, beautifully constructed, good AF | | Cons: | Relatively large and heavy | | Sharpness: 10
Aberrations: 9
Bokeh: 10
Autofocus: 9
Handling: 9
Value: 9
New or Used: New
Camera Used: K-1
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This is close to a reference quality lens. It is designed to excel at wide apertures where traditional 50mm lenses might struggle to produce good contrast and to a lesser extent good sharpness. Both weaknesses are mostly gone with this new lens. However you need to be careful because of the shallow DOF, which combined with a bit of LoCA can produce purply/green halos around bright out of focus objects. However, you need to really push the lens at F1.4 to see this. The colours are very punchy compared to traditional Pentax lenses.
I would say from a pure sharpness perspective, the FA50/2.8 Macro is almost as good. However, it has drawbacks such as a very sharp-edged 8-blade aperture, more blue/red CA, and finicky focus near infinity.
The DFA*50/1.4 is almost absurdly large; I think it's literally the size/weight/cost of 4-5 FA50/1.4 lenses or 2-3 DA*55/1.4 lenses. However, in addition to better IQ in all respects, it also has better AF (confident and quiet), and manual focus feel (similar to the DFA*70-200). The filter diameter is also a big step up to 72mm; compare against 58mm of the DA*55/1.4 and 49mm of the FA50/1.4.
| | | | | Pentaxian Registered: August, 2011 Location: Melbourne Posts: 4,847
6 users found this helpful
| | Review Date: January 10, 2019 | Recommended | Price: $1,098.00
| Rating: 10 |
| Pros: | scary sharp; creamy bokeh; beautifully built | | Cons: | heavy | | Sharpness: 10
Aberrations: 9
Bokeh: 10
Autofocus: 10
Handling: 7
Value: 8
New or Used: New
Camera Used: K1
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The impossible lens! When the first 1:1 images popped up on my computer screen from my first outing with this lens, I physically jumped. Wow, I never realised a photo could be that sharp. And when I scanned across to the edges, nothing changed. They are just as good! I didn't bother checking for front or back focus, as it was clearly spot-on.
And the bokeh is to-die-for. Creamy-smooth, perfectly accentuating the sharpness of the subject.
The autofocus is very accurate and fast. It didn't miss once (other than due to my own error). I haven't tried it yet with AF.S and targets moving toward me.
Colours seem consistent with other good Pentax lenses. Nothing to complain about there.
The only aberration I have noticed is some purple fringing in a few wide-open shots of out-of-focus dark features against a bright background. It is easily removed in post-processing, though unusually simply clicking the "Remove Chromatic Aberration" button in Lightroom doesn't do the job; I need to go to manual and use the slider. I don't know if this is a problem with the LR profile for this lens.
f/1.4 (575x419 crop)
Despite its heft, this is a lens that every Pentax shooter should aspire to .... unless they don't want to be spoiled.
Sorry, I don't have any portraits of dogs.
These are from my first proper outing with the lens, walking around the arcades and alleyways of Melbourne.
f/3.2 (click for flickr, and then click again for zoom)
f/3.2 (heavily cropped 893x1013; see thumbnail for full frame)
 . 
f/6.3 (click)
f/1.8 (click)
f/1.8 (click)
f/2 (click and zoom on the lady in the red dress to see how she pops from the mildly oof background)
f/2 (click)
f/8 (click)
f/8 (click for flickr and click again to zoom; notice sharpness across the frame from bottom to top)
 | | | | | Senior Member Registered: November, 2012 Posts: 151
1 user found this helpful
| | Review Date: December 21, 2018 | Recommended | Price: $1,000.00
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | Sharpness, Rendition, Bokeh, WR, AF | | Cons: | Weight | | Sharpness: 10
Aberrations: 9
Bokeh: 10
Autofocus: 10
Handling: 9
Value: 9
New or Used: New
Camera Used: K1
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Only reason why i cant give it a 10 is the weight. After using it for coupe of hours with K1, i had to rest for sometime before resuming. Apart from that, this lens is a gem. The first thing that i love about this lens is AF.. in my experience, no other pentax lens was as fast as this one.
Heavily cropped image
 | | | | | Veteran Member Registered: November, 2010 Location: Hueytown, Alabama Posts: 1,508
1 user found this helpful
| | Review Date: December 18, 2018 | Recommended | Price: $996.00
| Rating: 10 |
| Pros: | All | | Cons: | None | | New or Used: New
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All I can say is this lens is amazing best lens I have ever owned. Balances well with K-1 with grip.
One of the first shots
 IMGP9464 by Tim Crumly, on Flickr
| | | | | Loyal Site Supporter Registered: September, 2012 Location: 53143 Posts: 9 | | Review Date: September 22, 2018 | Recommended
| Rating: 10 |
| Pros: | Detail !!!, Fast focus, QUIET ! | | Cons: | Additional prime options in full frame of equal QUALITY. | | Sharpness: 10
Aberrations: 9
Bokeh: 10
Autofocus: 10
Handling: 10
Value: 10
New or Used: New
Camera Used: Pentax K3ii
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Please everyone,
If you can afford this lens, buy it now !
| | | | | Site Supporter Registered: August, 2018 Location: Colorado Posts: 3
2 users found this helpful
| | Review Date: September 18, 2018 | Recommended | Price: $1,196.00
| Rating: 10 |
| Pros: | Sharp, Fast,silent, and well built | | Cons: | none yet | | Sharpness: 10
Aberrations: 10
Bokeh: 10
Autofocus: 10
Handling: 10
Value: 10
New or Used: New
Camera Used: PENTAX K-1 Mark II
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First off WOW!! I just received this lens and I am blown away, I put it on my K-1 Mark II and magic. here are some first shots, keep in mind these are hand held and this is not a macro lens. and yes they are at almost 100% crop, ISO 100 F5.6 1/1250.
 | | | | | Senior Member Registered: October, 2015 Posts: 142
3 users found this helpful
| | Review Date: August 22, 2018 | Recommended | Price: $1,200.00
| Rating: 10 |
| Pros: | IQ, IQ, IQ | | Cons: | none I've found | | Sharpness: 10
Aberrations: 10
Bokeh: 10
Autofocus: 10
Handling: 10
Value: 8
New or Used: New
Camera Used: K-1
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This lens has impeccable IQ, definitely the best I've used. The only one that comes close is the Sigma Art and this seems to share some of the same DNA of big and heavy with stellar optics while managing to feel better balanced; I think more of the weight is in the back in that "heavy focus group" that is discussed as compared to the sigma I used.
Can't speak to how it is on APS-C but it seems like it'd be a waste of the corner-to-corner sharpness.
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