| Review of: HD Pentax-DA 645 28-45mm F4.5 ED AW SR by batmobile on Tue April 28, 2015 | Rating: 9 | View more reviews | |
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I was expecting a large lens and had read up lots in advance, but nothing prepared me for the sheer massiveness of it. It is genuinely enormous and every bit as large as a 35mm 70-200 f2.8 and much bigger than my 70-200 F4 lens. It handles fine in terms of what falls to finger, but the bulk is something to get used to. Tripod use will be interesting due to the lack of a collar, but I bought this lens for its range but also the fact that it can be used handheld, so very glad of the SR. I'm sure the tripod side will work fine.
Considering what the lens is doing (22-36mm equivalent, but on a larger sensor), image quality is nothing short of astonishing. Its tack sharp on centre from wide open and sharp right into the corners at close distances. Over long distances, it needs some stopping down, but is super-tight from f8 onwards at all focal lengths. It is so crisp that at f9.0, it is very hard to discern the edges from the centre.
Contrast is very good and viewed through the 645Z, the image is extremely bright, colourful and contrasty. I have not fully tested the SR in real terms, but it clearly works well and I can shoot at significantly lower speeds than my A7R with non-stabilised lenses.
This is a very complex lens and it changes character somewhat through the focal range and distances. I think there is curvature of the plane of focus towards the photographer at the edges, at distance, but very little up close. As I say, stopping down to f8 sort its out for landscape use and it is a no excuses lens. Simply amazing image quality that puts most prime lenses to shame. Diffraction comes into play by f11 on centre, but its very slight and f16 is still fairly respectable, so a lens I am happy to use anywhere from f8-f16 for landscapes, but with the aim of being around f8-11 if possible.
Its nice to see that it does not fall apart at one end of the range. I need to get to know it better, but from what I have seen it performs just as well at either end really (and in the middle).
CA is very well controlled, but distortion is quite noticeable at the wide end, though the profile in LR sorts that out nicely.
Massive and heavy, but it gives the sort of performance at landscape apertures I would expect from a Zeiss prime on full frame and clearly outperforms my 35mm f2.8 Sonnar for the A7R on a per pixel basis, around the edges and corners. It is closer to the 55mm FE Sonnar in sheer perfection, only it takes more stopping down to get there.
Mine was bought at a great discount with the 645Z and I cannot imagine what it would cost to have this sort of performance from Phase One or Hasselblad. Considering that even at the RRP it costs no more than a Leica 35mm f1.4, I consider it fairly good value for money.
Pentax have made the right decision making it big, because they have clearly ensured that it is optically astonishing and I have no doubt that this lens will still look very good on the next generation of sensors well in excess of 50mp. SR will have made it fatter, but for hand held work, it may be heavy, but can very clearly be used like a 35mm camera. Combined with the 645Z's ISO performance, its shooting envelope is huge.
I still can't get over the size of the thing, but I cannot stop looking at the perfect test frames it has delivered either.
WOW.
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