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Review of: SMC Pentax-M 40mm F2.8 by dme on Fri December 6, 2019 | Rating: 9

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I paid £19 for this online; don't ask me why it was so inexpensive. It is very compact. It's not very good at f2.8, and this makes precise manual focusing tricky, but it is pretty much as sharp as the Pentax 50mm offerings across the APS-C frame when stopped down to f8 and f11. The bokeh is inobtrusive. The colours are great. The minimum focus is 60mm, so not great, but sufficient for an arms length selfie. It isn't weatherproof, but it is so small it is partially shielded from the elements by the DSLR bodies, and I have confidence it is as rugged as they are. 40mm on an APS-C is equivalent to about 60mm on full frame, so it's very similar to using the Helios/BIOTAR 58mm on a 35mm camera. I prefer the perspective of the 40mm to the 35mm. I use it, a lot, when hiking, skiing, dog-sledding; any activity where I want to take my camera, but I want to minimise weight and it might be exposed to physical abuse. For views, I can just set it to infinity and f11 and they turn out well. Unless you are actively seeking veiling flare, do not include the sun in your frame! I like to boost the contrast out of the camera, but it's a matter of taste. As others have noted, the images from this lens are quite distinctive. Well worth my rating of 9, I reckon. 1.0.0.20

Review of: SMC Pentax-F 35-105mm F4-5.6 by dme on Fri July 28, 2017 | Rating: 9

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I bought this second hand in reasonable condition for its age. The aperture lever was a bit bent when I bought it, and it didn't work properly, but since I straightened it out it has performed flawlessly. This lens is really good. I compared it particularly with my Pentax FA 28-105mm f4-5.6 Power Zoom and the Tamron SP 17-50mm f2.8. The Pentax lenses are getting on for 30 years old, but I had the Tamron serviced earlier this year. The colours from all three lenses are similar, that is excellent. The contrast order is Tamron, FA, F, but there isn't much in it. At their overlapping focal lengths the Tamron is the sharpest in the centre of the frame. At up to 50mm the FA is as sharp as the F in the centre of the frame, but at f5.6 the F is the best in the corners, a little ahead of the Tamron, and a lot ahead of the FA. The F holds up all the way to 105mm (reported as 108mm by the Samsung GX20), but the FA gets relatively weaker (though it still looks just as good in the centre of the frame). The F is half the size of the FA. The FA and the Tamron focus much closer, and both the Tamron and the FA are really good close up. This is the only drawback with the F. The Macro at 105mm isn't anything remarkable. I find that the screw-in hood from a Tamron Adaptall 103A or 46A works very well. To my surprise, given that these lenses vary from 70 to 210mm focal length, there is no vignetting on the F even at 35mm. Highly recommended. I've given it 9.

Review of: SMC Pentax-F 35-80mm F4-5.6 by dme on Wed June 24, 2015 | Rating: 2

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This came in a bundle with an MZ-50 and an F 100-300 f4.5-5.6. Cosmetically all looked super. I took them outside to check that they worked. The F 100-300 annoyingly doesn't autofocus accurately enough, but the F 35-80 f4-5.6 is just awful. A shot down the garden 35mm f11, and I struggled to make out the bricks in the chimney stacks of the houses behind. So I set up a comparison between this, the very similar FA 35-80 f4-5.6, and various other autofocus lenses that I own. I tried autofocus, manual focus, live view, enabling and disabling Image Stabilisation, and varying the aperture up to f8. Nothing made much difference. The F 35-80 f4-5.6 gave the worst results of any of the lenses tried. The FA 35-80mm f4-5.6 was better. All the others were MUCH better in terms of detail captured and absence of aberrations; the other F's, the DA 18-55's, the Powerzooms, the FAJ 28-80, the other FA's ... the list goes on. This F 35-80mm f4-5.6 is the worst-performing Pentax lens I have ever owned. I have looked closely at my copy for subtle signs of damage, and can see none. I'm sure that the reviewers who have found their copies of this lens to be sharp cannot have imagined it, but equally neither have I, nor presumably have the other reviewers who have panned it. I can't recommend it, and I'm in no hurry to buy another on the off-chance that it will be O.K..

Review of: SMC Pentax-FA 28-80mm F3.5-4.7 by dme on Sat February 14, 2015 | Rating: 7

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My copy is an e-Bay Spares/repair, and cost £1.99 plus postage. It was offered for sale twice. The first time no one bid at all, so when it was re-listed I thought I would happily pay that to personally assuage my curiosity. On my copy, the Powerzoom switch is missing, and all moving parts feel as if they have sand in them. It was a struggle to move the zoom ring from the Powerzoom to the Manual Zoom position, and now it won't go back. However:

There is no fungus and there are no markings on the external glass surfaces, just a small amount of dust internally.
Autofocus is right on the money.

I played around with it indoors, and compared it with the Tamron 18-50mm f2.8, the Pentax FA 28-90mm f3.5-5.6 and the Pentax FA 28-105mm f4-5.6. Sharpness-wise, the 28-80mm holds its own. The JPEGs are as large if not larger than those from any of these other lenses and the colours are similar. However:

The micro-contrast of the 28-80mm was the worst of these four lenses. There's loads of detail, but it is harder to make it out than it is with any of the others
There was more fringing with the 28-80mm than with any of the others

Subjectively, the descending order of performance was

Pentax 28-105mm f4-5.6 Powerzoom
Tamron 17-50mm f2.8 Di II LD
Pentax 28-90mm f3.5-5.6
Pentax 28-80mm f3.5-4.7

Review of: SMC Pentax-F 100-300mm F4.5-5.6 by dme on Mon February 9, 2015 | Rating: 8

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Can a man have too many x-300mm consumer zooms? I took this (another LBA e-Bay purchase) down to a park with squirrels and a duckpond along with a Sigma 70-300mm f4-5.6 DG, a Pentax FA 80-320 f4.5-5.6, and a Pentax FA 100-300 f4.7-5.8, in an attempt to find out. The screw autofocus spooked the wild-life when it was close up, so most shots were taken at 200mm or more. I used a hood on all shots. All the lenses took some nice pictures. The Sigma scored because:

It is faster shorter, and goes shorter, to 70mm
It is the most compact stowed, and has a useful, reversible bayonet hood
It has as a bonus, a useful macro mode

The FA 100-300 f4.7-5.8 produced the subjectively best looking shots at 300mm, I think because it displayed the best contrast and least fringing. It is also the lightest, and the only one with a plastic mount. I don't think I can usefully distinguish between the sharpness of any of them based on this exercise; it mostly seemed to depend on what was precisely in focus. They are all sharp enough for my purposes at all focal lengths. At the long end, the FA 80-320mm f4.5-5.6 displayed the most fringing. Up to 250mm I struggle to distinguish between pictures taken with this lens, and the Sigma. The F 100-300mm doesn't show fringing in the plane of focus, but it becomes pronounced either side of the plane of focus. The Sigma doesn't show much fringing, but more than the FA 100-300mm f4.7-5.8. So, what's unique about the F 100-300mm f4.5-5.6? Like the Sigma, and the FA 80-320mm f4.5-5.6, the F 100-300 f4.5-5.6 is f4.5 to 200mm. But unlike with the Sigma, the Teleplus 2x Pz-AF teleconverter will work fairly reliably beyond this, up to 250mm, and since the lens seems to be parfocal, you can switch to manual focus and zoom further in, preserving sharp focus. I took some shots with the Teleplus at 500mm and compared them with the same view shot with a Samyang 500mm f6.3 mirror lens. The Teleconverter magnifies the fringing, whilst the mirror lens has no fringing at all. There is more detail in the Samyang image, but importantly there is more detail in the Teleconverter + F 100-300mm f4.5-5.6 image than there is in a crop of any image taken without a teleconverter with any of these lenses. The F 100-300mm f4.5-5.6 bokeh is good at shorter focal lengths, aided no doubt by the 9 aperture blades, but can be somewhat disfigured by purple fringing at 250mm plus. At the long end, the F 100-300mm f4.5-5.6 may have an edge in the corners. The F 100-300mm f4.5-5.6 is the longest of these lenses stowed, but it fits in my camera bag, so that isn't a problem for me. It doesn't change length when you zoom. The rotating front element is an inconvenience with polarising filters. The F 100-300mm manual focus is nicer than that of the FA lenses, and on a par with the Sigma. So in conclusion:

The FA 80-320mm is too similar to the Sigma for me to own both - but it wasn't mine anyway. It goes back in to my daughter's camera bag
The Sigma is the most flexible, and will probably continue to get the most use
The FA 100-300mm performs best at 300mm, and it is the lightest
The F 100-300mm performs reasonably and gives me autofocus to 500mm with my £20 teleconverter.

If I'm not careful I'll take to lugging around all three. UPDATE. I've picked up a second one of these, in a bundle with a working MZ50, and an F 35-80 f4-5.6, for £11. That's $17.26 at today's exchange rate. It's got to be worth more than that. My second copy looks mint, and its controls, particularly the zoom, are much smoother than on my original copy. When I focus manually with the aid of a magnifier, the images are indistinguishable from those taken with my first copy. However, it appears the autofocus seems to be less accurate with this second copy. I failed to improve matters using the autofocus fine adjustment feature. The focus errors seem not to be systematic. Something to watch out for, I guess, since some owners complain this lens isn't sharp, whilst others, myself included, find that it is. If it has missed focus at 250-300mm, there'll be lots of purple fringing on the intended target.

Review of: SMC Pentax-F 1.7x AF Adapter by dme on Thu February 5, 2015 | Rating: 8

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This gadget, that I bought in from an on-line photography site, launched my obsessive collecting of Adaptall lenses, so it has a lot to answer for. In combination with the Pentax-M 50mm f1.4, I find it flawless. The combination is still fast compared with my usual consumer and bargain fare (about f2.3), it is compact, and it handles well. At events, I manually set the aperture and speed, prefocus to somewhere short of infinity, and then seldom have to adjust anything again. Autofocus is instant, I have no complaints with respect to its accuracy, and bokeh, sharpness and colours are all excellent. Since I've been using an aggressive hood, I've come to prefer the look from the 50mm f1.4 to the 50m f1.7. I have a Pentax-A 50mm f1.7, and the combination works effectively, but to my mind the images offer nothing over the slightly slower Sigma 70-300mm f4-5.6 DG, which is at its best at shorter focal lengths. As mentioned by others, the 1.7x AF requires the presence of a K-style aperture lever to activate the autofocus function, so it doesn't autofocus M42 lenses with adapters, or T2 lenses. With these it functions as a 1.7x Teleconverter. It's O.K., but I get better central sharpness from a Kiron 1.5x (though the Pentax is better than the other 1.5x TC I own). If I mount a T2 or M42 lens on the 1.5x TC (which has an aperture lever), and then mount the TC on the Pentax-F 1.7x AF, it will autofocus if the lens is fast enough (f4.5), but the images that have resulted have been soft and lacking in contrast. Although it is only specified to work with lenses f2.8 and faster, in my experience the Pentax-F 1.7x AF autofocus mostly locks on reliably, albeit slowly, when the lens wide-open aperture, after allowing for the adapter, is f11 or greater, on my Samsung GX-20 in good light. Whether you will be able to discern more detail in the image created by the 1.7x than you would find in a 'digitally zoomed' version of an image taken without the 1.7x is another matter. Ones that pass this test for me are:

Pentax-M 50mm f1.4
Pentax-A 50mm f1.7
Pentax-M 75-150 f4
Pentax-M 80-200 f4.5
Tamron Adaptall SP 70-210mm f3.5 19AH
Tamron Adaptall-2 70-210mm f3.8-4 46A
Tamron Adaptall 80-250 f3.8 Z250
Tamron Adaptall 70-350 f4.5 CZ735
Tamron Adaptall SP 300mm f5.6 54B
Sigma 75-300mm APO f4.5-5.6
Tamron Adaptall-2 135mm f2.5 03B
Tamron Adaptall SP 90mm f2.8 72B
Tamron Adaptall 200mm f3.5 CT-200
Tamron Adaptall-2 200mm f3.5 04B
Tamron Adaptall 300mm f5.6 'Auto Tamron'
Tamron Adaptall 300mm f5.6 CT-300
Tamron Adaptall SP 300mm f5.6 54B
Tamron Adaptall SP 500mm f8 55BB
Vivitar (Tokina) TX 400mm f5.6 first version (77mm, 8 elements in 8 groups)

Ones that I have tried, but which don't seem to play so well are all the other Adaptall, Adaptall-2 and Adaptall SP (60-85)-(210-300) f(3.5-3.8)-f(4-5.4) zooms. However, for all of these with a maximum focal length of 200mm or less, it begs the question, why would you? For example, the Pentax FA 80-320mm f4.5-5.6 covers almost the entire range of any such lens used with the adapter, it will be faster, lighter (even than the Pentax-M 75-150mm f4 plus 1.7x AF combination), will concede nothing in image quality, and will likely cost less than the Pentax-F 1.7x AF on its own. Out of curiosity, I also tried my long AF Telezooms, and compared them on their own, and with the Teleplus MC4 Pz-AF DG. The MC4 only autofocuses when the attached lens is f4.5 or faster, so the 1.7x AF, which works to f5.6 and beyond, potentially offers some additional reach. My results were as follows.

The lenses are reported as A lenses
You have to set the shake reduction focal length manually
The aperture for the Sigma 70-300mm f4-5.6 DG could not be set successfully via the camera. The lens obviously made a complete hash of its PKA-compatible communication attempts.
The two Pentax 100-300mm zooms seemed to work properly as PKA lenses
The Pentax FA 100-300mm f4.7-5.8 wouldn't lock focus reliably past about 180mm
The Pentax F 100-300mm f4.5-5.6 would lock all the way out to 300mm, and it gave the best images that I achieved with the 1.7x AF, but I got better results by 'digital zooming', and still better with the MC4.

In summary, my only unqualified successes, in so far as the combination gives me something that I cannot achieve more easily and cheaply in some other way are:

Pentax-M 50mm f1.4
Tamron Adaptall SP 90mm f2.8 72B in macro mode
Tamron Adaptall 80-250mm f3.8 Z250
Tamron Adaptall 70-350mm f4.5 CZ735
Tamron Adaptall 500mm f8 55BB (needs a bright day and high-contrast target, but it works)
Vivitar (Tokina) TX 400mm f5.6

And two of these make the grade because the manual lenses were such astonishingly good value. When I am going out with just fast primes, I do pack the 1.7x AF for the potential additional reach, and to fill the gaps, but I seldom deploy it. So, whilst I recommend the Pentax F 1.7x at the price I paid for it, I would never be able to justify paying $200 plus.

Review of: SMC Pentax-FA 80-200mm F4.7-5.6 by dme on Sat December 6, 2014 | Rating: 8

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I had no need to buy this, but when an eBay auction came up offering the FA 35-80mm f4-5.6, the FA 100-300 f4.7-5.8, and this lens together, curiosity got the better of me, and £43 including postage later I was the proud owner of all three. I apportioned this total to give the indicated price. These lenses can have seen little use. They look optically perfect, their bodies are almost unmarked, their zoom mechanisms are astonishingly smooth, and there is none of the looseness that characterises the other silver FA lenses I have owned and used. They are plastic, with plastic mounts, and look flimsy, but the benefit is lightness. Whereas the Pentax F 70-210mm f4-5.6 weighs over 500 gm, this only weighs 300 gm. I spent a couple of afternoons playing with this, the Sigma, the Pentax F 70-210 mm, the Pentax FA 100-300mm f4.7-5.8, and some Tamron Adaptalls with the Pentax 1.7x AF in the back garden, once on a sunny day, and once on a miserable grey day when I had to shoot hand held at 1/50 s or less at all focal lengths. My conclusions were:

The Adaptall/Pentax 1.7x AF combination lacks contrast compared with the AF zooms, and there was no reason to prefer any of the Adaptalls (the 03B 135mm f2.5, the 04B 200mm f3.5 and the 19AH 70-210mm f3.5) plus the Pentax 1.7x AF over any of these, except the F 70-210mm at 200mm.
At 100mm the order was 1 Sigma 70-300, 2 Pentax F 70-210, 3 FA 100-300, 4 FA 80-200. The Sigma is a bit ahead, and the other three are very similar.
At 200mm, the order was 1 FA 100-300, 2 FA 80-200, 3 Sigma 70-300, 4 F 70-210. The FA 100-300 is a bit ahead, the Sigma 70-300 and the FA 80-200 are similar, and the F 70-210 is just awful.

I used a hood on all of them. To my surprise, given that this lens is so slow, this lens plays really well with the Teleplus 2x Pz-AF DG MC4. It usually quickly locks focus at all focal lengths, and the images at 300mm stand comparison with the Sigma 70-300 and the FA 100-300 at 300mm without using a teleconverter. Colours, contrast and sharpness are all excellent in the centre of the frame. Why are there so many poor reviews for this lens? It could be copy variation, or it could be a reflection on the flimsy build quality. But mine is still excellent. So I give it 8.

Review of: SMC Pentax-FA 100-300mm F4.7-5.8 by dme on Sat December 6, 2014 | Rating: 9

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I had no need to buy this, but when an eBay auction came up offering the FA 35-80mm f4-5.6, the FA 80-200 f4.7-5.6, and this lens together, curiosity got the better of me, and £43 including postage later I was the proud owner of all three. I apportioned this total to give the indicated price. These lenses can have seen little use. They look optically perfect, their bodies are almost unmarked, their zoom mechanisms are astonishingly smooth, and there is none of the looseness that characterises the other silver FA lenses I have owned and used. They are plastic, with plastic mounts, and look flimsy, but the benefit is lightness. Whereas the Sigma 70-300mm f4-5.6 DG Macro weighs over 600 gm, this only weighs 400 gm. I spent a couple of afternoons playing with this, the Sigma, the Pentax F 70-210 mm, the Pentax FA 80-200mm f4.7-5.6, and some Tamron Adaptalls with the Pentax 1.7x AF in the back garden, once on a sunny day, and once on a miserable grey day when I had to shoot hand held at 1/50 s or less at all focal lengths. My conclusions were:

The Adaptall/Pentax 1.7x AF combination lacks contrast compared with the AF zooms, and there was no reason to prefer any of the Adaptalls (the 03B 135mm f2.5, the 04B 200mm f3.5 and the 19AH 70-210mm f3.5) plus the Pentax 1.7x AF over any of these, except the F 70-210mm at 200mm.
At 70 mm the order was 1 Sigma 70-300, 2 Pentax F 70-210, and they are close
At 100mm the order was 1 Sigma 70-300, 2 Pentax F 70-210, 3 FA 100-300, 4 FA 80-200. The Sigma is a bit ahead, and the other three are very similar.
At 200mm, the order was 1 FA 100-300, 2 FA 80-200, 3 Sigma 70-300, 4 F 70-210. The FA 100-300 is a bit ahead, the Sigma 70-300 and the FA 80-200 are similar, and the F 70-210 is just awful.
At 300mm, the order was 1 FA 100-300, 2 Sigma 70-300, and by a clear margin if you pixel peep.

I used a hood on all of them. This lens doesn't play well with the Teleplus 2x Pz-AF DG MC4. My results with the Sigma 70-300mm and, especially, the FA 80-200 are better at all the focal lengths they have in common. However, in every other respect I am very pleased with it. Colours, contrast and sharpness all excellent in the centre of the frame. A bit of blue fringing on high contrast transitions near the edges of the frame beyond the plane of focus, and purple in front of the focus frame, but otherwise no aberrations. So I give it 9.

Review of: SMC Pentax-F 28-80mm F3.5-4.5 by dme on Sat October 5, 2013 | Rating: 8

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I own the following partially overlapping Pentax AF Consumer Zooms: - Samsung version of the 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 version 2. - F 35-70 3.5-4.5 - FA 28-70 f4 - FA 28-90 f3.5-5.6 - FAJ 28-80 f3.5-5.6 - FA 28-105 f4-5.6 Powerzoom The Powerzoom is slower, but superior across the board. At 28mm, only the slower, much more bulky Powerzoom is superior. The 28-90 is close. There isn't much difference between this and the highly regarded F 35-70 over their common range. The 18-55 tends to have better colour, but the Pentax F 28-80 is sharper. The Pentax F 28-80 is faster and better than the FAJ 28-80 and the FA 28-90 at 80mm. All this with one proviso. The pictures are vastly better if the sun is behind you than if it is in front. If the sun is in front (it doesn't need to be anywhere near the field of view) there is veiling flare. This is true even though I always use a hood. The front lens rotates, which is a bit of a pain using a circular polariser. But because it is faster than the Powerzoom, the circular polariser doesn't affect the autofocus the way that it affects the Powerzoom. I found the long minimum focus to be a problem for me. The lens is pretty useless in a garden party crowd. The Macro mode is really only a close focus capability and it only applies at the long end. It's nice, though. This lens is amazingly cheap. If I didn't own the Powerzoom I would use this more often than I do.

Review of: SMC-Pentax FA 28-105mm F4-5.6 by dme on Thu July 4, 2013 | Rating: 9

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This lens currently occupies the middle slot in my auto-focus range, between the Tamron 17-50mm f2.8 Di II AF and the Sigma 70-300mm f4-5.6 DG AF. If I am going for a walk around town during the day, I would usually put this on the Pentax K-X, and the Tamron on the Samsung GX20, because the K-X high ISO is superior to the GX20, but it works well on either. I own (LBA) the Pentax F 35-70mm f3.5-4.5, the F 28-80mm f3.5-4.5, the FA 28-70mm f4, the FA-J 28-80 f3.5-5.6 and the FA 28-90mm f3.5-5.6, and in terms of image quality I find this to be superior to all of them. Wide open it is as sharper, or sharper, than any of the others when they are wide open (though some of the others are a little faster) and in terms of colour only the FA 28-90mm f3.5-5.6 gets close. The F 28-80mm f3.5-4.5, is nearly as sharp, but the FA 28-105mm PZ has better colour, less CA, is less affected by flare, and focuses closer. The FA 28-90mm f3.5-5.6 almost matches FA 28-105mm f4-5.6 PZ's colour rendition, but the 28-90mm is slightly less sharp, and is less contrasty. The F 35-70mm is as sharp, but the colours come out less saturated, and the zoom range is by comparison limited. I have not found the bokeh to be a problem; in my pictures it is pleasantly blurred, and not busy at all. I imagine that the 9 bladed aperture is important, because in bright sunlight and Auto mode the lens is usually stopped down. I have never mastered the Power Zoom (it works on the Samsung GX20). When I have tried to use it, I have hunted for the Zoom level I wanted; short, long; short, long ... So I leave it switched off. On a sunny day, it is fast enough. Indoors I get good results with a 'bounce' flash. So what's not to like? Well, it is a bit large for my holster, and objectively it is large and heavy for its zoom range and slow speed. It would be nice if it went to 24mm at the short end. And the front element rotates, which might be a bit of a pain with a polarising filter and my screw-in petal hood. However, when I'm using the polarising filter I am likely focused far away, so once initially set up neither the hood nor the filter need much tweaking. The final judgement; when I leave it at home, because I am chasing wild-life or having to use natural light in semi-darkness, or simply because I fancy a change, and then put the FA 28-105mm f4-5.6 AF Power Zoom back on the camera, and take a picture, I always look at the next image I take, and exclaim Wow! It's really that good.

Review of: SMC Pentax-M 80-200mm F4.5 by dme on Fri June 14, 2013 | Rating: 7

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I bought this after discovering the brilliant Pentax-M 35-70mm f2.8-3.5 and the astounding Pentax-M 75-150mm f4. However, I don't think this is in quite the same league. My copy is version 2. It seems to be in perfect condition, and cost £10 including postage. The images I take with it resemble those taken with the somewhat older and bulkier Tamron 85-210mm f4.5 Model QZ-210M. On the screen, the overall impression given by the images are similar, and when I pixel-peep, contrast and detail appear likewise. The Pentax has fewer fringes though. The Pentax bokeh and colour are unexceptional. The Pentax is very well made, and it handles nicely, but although the wide open images I have taken with it are comparable to, they are not as sharp as, those taken with the somewhat larger Tamron Adaptall-2 70-210mm f3.8-4 Model 46A, and this is true at all focal lengths. I find that even with Image Stabilisation, the faster the shutter speed, the more likely it is that my pictures are going to be sharp. For me, the speed advantage of the Tamron seems to make a useful difference to the success of my attempts to photograph. I judge the Pentax wide open performance to be superior to that of the slightly faster Kiron-made Vivitar Series 1 70-210mm f3.5 and the Kiron-made Vivitar 75-205mm f3.8. The Pentax works well with the Pentax 1.7x AF converter. But you need good light. The lack of fringing compared with the Tamrons ensures that I do use the Pentax occasionally, but the relatively narrow maximum aperture is a downer. Since the Pentax can be acquired so inexpensively, and is quite compact for such a focal length range, the availability of plenty of other lenses that are just as good, or slightly better, is no reason to avoid owning the Pentax. Thus I have no hesitation in recommending it. But I have marked it down to a 7 to reflect the many available possibly superior and equally inexpensive alternatives.

Review of: SMC Pentax-M 135mm F3.5 by dme on Fri June 14, 2013 | Rating: 7

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I confess to being disappointed by this lens. In its favour, it is tiny, light, and well made. However, contrast is lacking wide open, so it is difficult for me to focus it by eye; I have to rely on the focus confirmation. It is possible that it seems soft because I have missed the focus slightly, but my pictures with this lens wide open are soft. At f5.6, sharpness and contrast have improved significantly. Sharpness gets close to the CZJ 135mm f3.5 Sonnar when the CZJ is wide open, contrast is still behind. Switching to the CZJ, I notice how much more easily the CZJ snaps in to focus. The Pentax bokeh is inoffensive, as is the colour, and fringing is minimal, but the images lack 'Wow' factor. The Pentax works well with the Pentax 1.7x AF adapter, but it since the lens still needs to be stopped down to f5.6 to get an acceptably sharp image, it is restricted to bright sunlight only.

Review of: SMC Pentax-M 35-70mm F2.8-3.5 by dme on Thu May 23, 2013 | Rating: 9

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For a few years now I have been looking for a zoom to fill in between the 'Normal Zoom' (first the 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 kit lens, and then the Tamron 17-50mm) and the Tele-zoom (first the Pentax FA 80-320mm f4.5-5.6, then the Sigma 70-300mm DG f4-5.6). I started with the Pentax FA 28-90mm f3.5-5.6 (beautiful colours but slow at the long end, and the images don't withstand pixel peeping), then the Pentax F 28-80mm f3.5-4.5 (heavier, sharper and faster, but more vulnerable to flare and an impossibly long minimum focus distance), then the Pentax F 35-70mm f3.5-4.5 (sharper still, but too little overlap with the others; too many lens changes), the Pentax FA 28-105mm f4-5.6 Powerzoom (the best images, but the thing is HUGE, and a bit slow), the Pentax FA 28-70mm f4 (does not go as wide as its name suggests!) so back to the Powerzoom ... Then I bought a Pentax-M 75-150mm f4 for £10. It was so much better than I had expected, I decided to try another Pentax-M, this one. This cost a bit more, £28 including postage. I might have bought a pair of some of the Pentax F or FA zooms I have mentioned above, and some I haven't, for this price, but they wouldn't have offered f2.8. The Tamron 17-50mm f2.8 focuses closer, and I feel that its performance wide open is excellent, but wide open in-doors with available light, the Pentax-M 35-70mm f2.8-3.5 performs better over the focal range they have in common (more detail, better contrast), and out-of-doors I can't tell the difference between the images from the two lenses. I personally do not find this lens to be unduly bulky, my copy doesn't suffer from zoom creep, and I don't have any difficulty focusing it. I find both its construction and its handling to be excellent. I probably won't use it much, for the same reason that I have eschewed the Pentax F 35-70mm f3.5-4.5, but my copy seems to be every bit as good as other reviewers find theirs to be.

Review of: SMC Pentax-M 75-150mm F4 by dme on Thu May 23, 2013 | Rating: 9

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Views: 199205
Reviews: 58

For the first 5 years I owned a Digital SLR, I seldom used a manual zoom when I had an equivalent autofocus lens to hand. Zoom technology has moved on apace these last 30 years, and manual focus, IS focal length updating and green button metering can be tedious. Furthermore, this zoom only covers the focal range of 75-150mm; I didn't think I would make use of it. However, after I more or less by accident acquired the Tamron Adaptall-1 70-150mm zoom, I revised my opinions of the focal length range, and the reviews on this site, coupled with the amazing lack of expense, prompted me to risk £10 (including postage) on eBay. I'm glad I did. The sharpness wide open, if I nail the focus, is spectacular, and the colours are very pleasing. If there are highlights beyond the focus, the bokeh can be annoying, and CA can sometimes be apparent at high contrast boundaries where the image is slightly out of focus, but there is nothing else to cavil at. Build quality and handling are excellent, and the the lens, although it weighs nearly as much as a modern 70-300mm mostly plastic consumer zoom, fits comfortably in a coat pocket, so it needn't keep something else out of the camera bag. It works very well with the Pentax 1.7x autofocus adapter.