Review of: SMC Pentax-D FA 100mm F2.8 Macro WR by hypermodern on Thu January 9, 2020 | Rating: 9 | View more reviews | |
Views: 460140
Reviews: 106 |
Crisp images with great colours and smooth bokeh. Manual focus is silky smooth so an aperture ring would be more useful to me than a focus limiter, but the limited would be of use to people who like this as a short telephoto. So small and light I can easily pop it into a bag if I go birding or whatever. It does feel good in the hand, even the lens hood is excellent. Opened a world of macro photography to me, so it is worthy of a high score.
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Review of: SMC Pentax-DA* 50-135mm F2.8 ED [IF] SDM by hypermodern on Wed January 8, 2020 | Rating: 8 | View more reviews | |
Views: 550832
Reviews: 154 |
I had the Sigma 50-150mm f2.8 but it wouldn’t work properly on my K3ii so I replaced it with this. I’m very pleased I did. Both are sharp but I much prefer the colours on this and I like that it is weather sealed too. It’s large but not unwieldy and autofocus is only slightly slower than I would like. It could be sharper wide open but it’s much better from f4.
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Review of: SMC Pentax-DA 18-135mm F3.5-5.6 ED AL [IF] DC WR by hypermodern on Wed January 8, 2020 | Rating: 7 | View more reviews | |
Views: 622398
Reviews: 140 |
Would I recomend this lens? Very hard question. I have one which I very rarely use because the max aperture is slow, there is distortion and CA in the images and softness away from the centre. But, it's weather sealed, has a wide zoom range, handles nicely, gives clean Pentax colours and has quick, quiet autofocus. I'm not a one-lens kind of guy, I'd rather take 21mm and 70mm primes and switch as required. So why haven't I sold it? Because maybe one day I'll be in really tough conditions and I'll need a solid lens that I won't mind getting roughed up. Until then, a nice prime will make me much happier. Should you get one? If you want the best IQ this isn't for you. If you want a lens that'll have a pretty good stab at most things and never let you down, then this is it.
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Review of: SMC Pentax-DA 10-17mm F3.5-4.5 Fish-Eye ED [IF] by hypermodern on Wed January 8, 2020 | Rating: 8 | View more reviews | |
Views: 306135
Reviews: 101 |
Easy to carry, goes from fish-eye to super-wide (with distortion). Close focus is really useful. Most importantly to me is it makes photography fun. I shot my brother’s wedding and afterwards I didn’t want to pick up a camera at all. After a week it was this lens that got me out of my rut and into the swing of making and taking photos again. I’m not a fish-eye aficionado and there weren’t many keepers but there were a couple of good ones and it made me think about composition in a fresh light. Very difficult to rate but makes me happy.
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Review of: SMC Pentax-DA* 300mm F4 ED [IF] SDM by hypermodern on Tue January 7, 2020 | Rating: 9 | View more reviews | |
Views: 363349
Reviews: 81 |
Pleasing in the hand, images are wonderful, sharpness is very good wide open and superb from f5.6. Plays well with the HD 1.4x TC. Took me a while to work out how to get good results with a long lens, but that's about the 12 inches behind the camera. No complaints.
There are a selection of my photos with this lens, mostly with the HD 1.4x TC, on my flickr https://www.flickr.com/photos/153047920@N07/ | |
Review of: HD Pentax-DA 70mm F2.4 Limited by hypermodern on Sun January 5, 2020 | Rating: 9 | View more reviews | |
Views: 93792
Reviews: 17 |
So small and light I can easily pop it into a pocket on the off-chance I'll need it. Very useful bit of reach, good for portraits, minimum focus distance is a bit short for flowers etc. OOF areas are very attractive and the colours are spot on. Not quite sharp at f2.4, very good from f2.8.
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Review of: SMC Pentax-DA* 55mm F1.4 SDM by hypermodern on Sun January 5, 2020 | Rating: 9 | View more reviews | |
Views: 351949
Reviews: 72 |
Chromatic aberration at f1.4 is improved by f1.6, so I never use this wide open. Autofocus on my used copy must be warmed up and is still a bit slow. But it makes gorgeous images and the bokeh is lovely (but I did dock it one point for the little bit of chromatic aberration in the bokeh balls). If my used copy breaks I'll replace it with a new one in the home the autofocus is a bit better behaved.
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Review of: SMC Pentax-DA 35mm F2.4 AL by hypermodern on Sun January 5, 2020 | Rating: 8 | View more reviews | |
Views: 766843
Reviews: 157 |
Much better than it looks, I took my baby photos with this and began my photography journey in the process. I don't like the bokeh or the focus ring or the lack of a lens hood, but everything else is good. I don't use it much now I have better lenses but I wouldn't part with it.
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Review of: SMC Pentax-DA 21mm F3.2 Limited by hypermodern on Sun January 5, 2020 | Rating: 9 | View more reviews | |
Views: 383480
Reviews: 96 |
As others have said, an excellent walk-around focal length. Colours (especially blues) are beautiful. Centre sharpness is very good from f4. Floaty light, lovely to use. Out of focus areas look very natural. Would replace immediately if I lost it.
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