| Latest Review Posted | SMC Pentax-M 28-50mm F3.5-4.5
This is my "standard" lens on my MX. Like almost all M lenses, this thing is built to excellent craftsmanship. The zoom barrel is smooth as is the focusing ring. I usually have one finger on the focus ring and other on the zoom ring and a third on the aperture ring. I don't remember how long it took me to embed that technique into my brain, but its like second nature to me now and operating this lens is smooth and fast. Its funny that what we considered to be standard quality then is now regarded to a Premium or Limited editions today.
As has been said before, its not the sharpest lens in my collection, but its not bad. Around 5.6 things start sharpening up considerably. Slight barrel distortion at 28mm but mostly gone by 35mm.
Previous to this lens, I owned the CPC Phase 2 28-50mm which is said to also be made by Pentax. (although I didn't know that at the time, kinda explains a lot about that lens.) That lens handled exactly the same and had similar image quality, but lacked the SMC coating of the Pentax.The main difference is the "snap" that the Pentax has over the CPC with my color images. Everything seemed to be slightly more contrasty, and more saturated than with the CPC. So SMC really does make a big difference.
The range covered is good on film and the lens looks great on the classic cameras. |
