Latest Review Posted | SMC Pentax-FA 28-80mm F3.5-5.6 Its construction is soild enough for a kit lens, if a bit plastic-tastic. At least the mount is metal. The front element wobbles a tiny bit. The stop-down lever is not the smoothest. The diaphragm is a six-bladed type. Weight is 300 grams.
The zoom ring is fairly smooth and not too sticky, rather stiffer around the 28mm and 80mm ranges. Autofocus is quite snappy, but manual focus is very bad - due to the short focus throw, and loose focus ring that has virtually no resistance.
Image quality is on a par with the SMC Pentax-DA 18-55 3.5-5.6 AL, its APS-C DSLR equivalent. While predicatably soft wide open, and prone to chromatic aberration, I have found that the 28-80 can sometimes outperform the 18-55 at around f/11, at least where sharpness is concerned. Contrast can be a bit higher on the 28-80 too.
There's certainly no problem with vignetting with this lens when a 1.5x crop factor is involved. Also, the 28mm end serves as a convenient "standard" focal length if you've no other equivalent lens.
Not a brilliant lens by anyone's standards, but cheap and easy to find, especially when included with an MZ/ZX type SLR found often on eBay. It doesn't get used much, but it's a keeper nonetheless. It's useful as a beginner or backup lens. |