| Latest Review Posted | SMC Pentax-F 50mm F1.7
Found this one at a Goodwill, with a PZ-10 attached. The filter ring was damaged but it looked clean and straight and mechanically sound, so for $30 I decided to risk it.
Ha, ha! It's awesome! This thing totally surpassed my expectations for a thrift-store find, despite its cosmetic damage.
It's very sharp and quick to focus, and I appreciate the speed when shooting in available light indoors. I rarely open it up more than to f2.0, but even wide open the results are acceptable, especially for portraits. Closed down to f4.0 and beyond and it's sharp sharp sharp.
It seems to have the same optical qualities as my SMC-M 50mm f1.7. Not surprising--it's the same formula/coating, only in an AF mount. Mine played pretty well with the K-5 out of the box--maybe it needed 1 or 2 steps to correct a little front-focusing, but that was it. It's great as a short telephoto/portrait lens on APS-C, and a nice walking-around beater lens, too. Sharpness rivals my 70mm f2.4 Limited, and comes pretty close to my 35mm f2.8 Limited Macro.
The only issues I'm running into is that there's no quick-shift focus option. In addition, there's occasional CR apparent in some conditions (mainly below, say, f4.0 in bright sunlight), but that's about it. Other than that, it's plug-and-play with the K-5, and easily worth 4x what I paid for it. |
