New Member Registered: August, 2018 Posts: 2 | | Review Date: March 13, 2020 | Recommended | Price: $10.00
| Rating: 8 |
| Pros: | Covers the 85-210mm range with micro capabilities | | Cons: | Heavy | | Sharpness: 8
Aberrations: 6
Bokeh: 8
Handling: 7
Value: 8
Camera Used: K-01
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It is a heavy lens (compared to todays lenses), made for film. It has micro capabilities. Works well with my K-01, the pictures are decent quality. It is a manual lens so one needs to adjust aperture and focus manually.
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Site Supporter Registered: November, 2012 Location: North Wales Posts: 2,869
1 user found this helpful
| | Review Date: June 6, 2014 | Recommended | Price: $15.00
| Rating: 6 |
| Pros: | Build, ok resolution, macro mode to 1:3 | | Cons: | Focus drift when zooming, CA, poor contrast. | | Sharpness: 7
Aberrations: 6
Bokeh: 9
Handling: 9
Value: 8
Camera Used: Pentax K-r, K5
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This lens is kid brother to the 80-250mm QZ-825M adaptall-1 zoom - smaller, lighter but identical construction style and features. One technical difference: this is constant aperture unlike the QZ825-M. A tad slow actually, at f4.5. I had little inclination to acquire this lens, but, prompted by a couple of quite decent looking close focus pics taken with it posted on a forum, I tossed in a bid and it's now mine.
These early adaptall lenses were relatively premium items in their era and the construction and mechanics reflects that - fine pieces of kit. However one of my criticisms of these 2-ring adaptall-1 zooms is that the parfocality is imprecise: there is drift off focus while zooming. With this lens this was most specifically noticeable zooming ~150mm to/from 210mm when focussing on distant objects. This does militate against the effectiveness of its two ring design.
My other main criticism is poor contrast, and walk around jpg's are pretty much what I expected and not very inspiring. IMO this adaptall has absolutely the dullest contrast of all off the card. Against that, this did surprisingly well for an old zoom re CA/PF - just a distinct but slight tinge on the backlit castle turrets. These two aspects in combination enough, however, for test pics of a noticeboard to really disappoint, the lettering soft, indistinct and rather purple, edges not sharp, showing a bit of coma/halo, and not much improvement stopping down. Crop: f5.6, 210mm, off the card jpg.
To try to see the most that the lens can do I developed most test pics from RAW in LR3.6. This first strip is crops of the estuary marker at 210mm, Pentax K-r, second crop at f5.6 is an off-the-card jpg for comparison. TBH I thought this lens resolved the writing and other features pretty well - better than my 103A, for example. Distinctly softer at f4.5 but about as much as one expects. Incipient signs of PF on the cables, decreasing with aperture.
It was the macro mode that I was interested to check out. Like its big brother this is fairly unique: a press button allows the zoom ring to rotate beyond the 85mm point, which then moves the variator group in relation to the other lens groups (the internal mechanics are thus quite complex, I'd think twice about trying to take this one apart). This allows the lens to attain 1:3 magnification, CWD is around 20cm. Results... well I have to say I haven't been blown away, slightly better than its big brother IMO, and not too bad, but if you're serious about some close up work you'll look for better. But it does significantly add to the versatility of the lens, and the bokeh is good ... in fact really good. Sample flower pic, RAW, f18, resized.
You can compare these 100% crops of the stone cat taken at 135mm with same shots taken with 135mm primes here. Focus was on the cats' whiskers. The second pic is off-the-card jpg at f5.6. Warm colour, smooth bokeh. Combination of low contrast and lower resolution wide open makes a pretty soft image, and there is a distinct fringe around the ears. LR has ameliorated the distinctly flat character of the off the card jpg's, I bumped up blacks and contrast a fair amount, but overall I wasn't too impressed with these results. f4.5, f5.6, f5.6, f8, f11.
My shots of the castle were more pleasing, suggesting this lens does better at longer range.
Between this and its 80-250mm big brother I recommend big brother, which for me has the advantage of a bigger focal range and performance at middling f's competitive with eg my Vivitar series 1. Between this and the rated adaptall-2 TP's: given that eg the 103A/46A can be obtained for equally little, they are overall to be much preferred, optically. If you're into interesting and somewhat classic older lenses like this and work with RAW this lens has some good resolution, but, re recommendation, I would suggest it's more collectible than usable.
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New Member Registered: February, 2012 Posts: 17 | | Review Date: June 8, 2013 | Not Recommended | Price: $10.00
| Rating: 6 |
| Pros: | Compact. Constant Aperture. Well made. A/M switch | | Cons: | Not that fast wide open. Fringing evident. | |
This is one of the last Adaptall lenses before the launch of the Adaptall-2. Mine is in perfect condition. Focus and zoom are silky smooth.
In appearance it looks just like the QZ-150M and the QZ-250M, but it is intermediate in size. It shares their excellent build.
It is acceptably sharp wide open, and JPEG image sizes are similar to those produced with the 70-210mm f3.8-4 46A, or the Sigma 70-300mm f4-5.6. However:
- The 46A and the Sigma colours are nicer
- The 46A is appreciably faster
- The QZ-210M exhibits much more fringing
- The QZ-210M bokeh can be multi-coloured when I don't expect it to be!
The QZ-210M's macro mode reduces the minimum focus distance, the A/M switch is a plus, it costs next to nothing, and its handling is exemplary, but I can't see any reason for preferring it to the 46A, the 03A, the 103A, or the contemporary Vivitar/Kirons, all of which are faster.
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