| Author: | | Senior Member Registered: February, 2009 Location: Lévis, Canada (Québec) Posts: 144
1 user found this helpful
| | Review Date: February 6, 2009 | Recommended | Price: $120.00
| Rating: 8 |
| Pros: | Fast, affordable, solid, nice bokeh. | | Cons: | Big and heavy, one ring for focus/zoom, others. | | Sharpness: 7
Aberrations: 8
Bokeh: 9
Handling: 6
Value: 8
Camera Used: K-5, K-7, K10D
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Bought this lens used to add to my old film camera kit (K1000). A mixed blessing.
First of all, the range is excellent for many applications and the lens is quite fast. Given the low price, it's quite a sound offer.
On the other hand, many samples of this lens suffer from "lens separation" (the coating on the lens starts to give off and leaves "spots" on the inner/outer surface of some lens elements). Mine does as well...
As a result, sharpness is difficult to rate, since it's probably softer than a lens in good shape. My sample is soft wide open but gets quite sharp from F4-F5.6 up to F11. Sharpness is rather average at the smallest apertures.
The contrast is also average, being the first victim of the "lens separation" issue. Light position is also a very important factor since images become misty when the lens is turned towards the sun, thanks again to the "lens separation" issue. A deep lens hood is strongly recommended, especially since this lens is very, very sensitive to flare.
I guess a good sample would have average to high contrast and would be quite sharp wide open, and would get to excellent levels once stopped down.
The lens shows little vignetting wide open and distortion is quite under control. Even on film, the distortion is quite okay, although the vignetting is much higher at the longer focal lengths.
Lateral CAs are not too pronounced for such a lens (film-era) and purple fringing is not as worst as I would've expected, showing only very rarely and only in high contrast situations (like the light of the sun reflecting off some metallic object). Longitudinal CAs are also visible but are rather low for such an old piece of glass. Good performance, here.
Bokeh is quite surprising: buttery wide open and still good when stopped down, especially at the longer focal lengths, where it really shines.
The lens is very macro capable too (almost 1:2) and seems to perform better at close distances (perhaps again because of the issue mentioned above).
But my main complains would be the lack of two separate rings, one for focusing, one for zooming. Some might like it, but I don't. A tripod collar would've been nice too.
The lens is also prone to zoom creep, which can be very annoying when doing macro work with the lens placed above the subject, for the zoom ring "falls down", increasing focal length in the process.
Overall, this zoom still remains a keeper (provided you find a good sample), thanks to its solid construction, nice bokeh, and fast, constant aperture. But if you think the little flaws (one ring for zoom/focus, lack of tripod collar, zoom creeping) I mentioned can be a problem for you, check for something else or be sure you don't pay too much and that your sample doesn't suffer from "lens separation". Lots of bangs for the buck, though.
| | | | | | | New Member Registered: June, 2008 Location: Nottingham, UK Posts: 6
1 user found this helpful
| | Review Date: December 3, 2008 | Recommended | Price: $60.00
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | Fast, build quality, ease of use | | Cons: | Heavy, no tripod collar | |
Not much to add to the previous two posters, except to say I'm really happy with this lens. Use it with a monopod and you've a terrific fast telephoto zoom for a tenth of the price of a newer version. It's the lens that convinced me M42 mount is where my LBA is to be satisfied.
A full user's manual for this lens can be downloaded in .pdf format from http://www.boggys.co.uk/page14.html | | | | | Pentaxian Registered: March, 2008 Location: Quebec city, Canada Posts: 9,363 | | Review Date: July 7, 2008 | Recommended | Price: $60.00
| Rating: 8 |
| Pros: | Build quality, creamy focus, constant f3,5, sharpness | | Cons: | Can cause AWB struggle in some (vey specific) situations | |
I bought this lens from eBay. I wanted a nice zoom, didn't have the money to afford a K20D, Sigma 17-70 AND a zoom lens all at the same time. This lens usually sells for much more than what I paid, but I won't complain.
Build quality is amazing. This lens was made in 1978, and is perfect except for some very slight brassing on an edge. No zoom creep even after all this time, front coating perfect, focus ring operates smooth as butter (much, much better than an autofocus lens!), the macro switch is fluid and never gets stuck, the aperture ring works surprinsingly smoothly.
Image quality is impressive. There are various reports on the web about this legendary lens. Most will show that the Kiron version is slightly less sharp in the corners, but with an APS sensor this is no issue, I find it sharp across the whole image. Bokeh is wonderful, smooth and creamy. With an f3,5 max aperture, at 210 mm, subject isolation is easy. The contrast and colours are beautiful, I always notice this len's colours immediately when reviewing pictures.
The lens is visibly less sharp at f3,5, but just one half stop less and it gets as good as you'd want. Sharpness stays constant (to my eyes) until at least f8. At f8 my K20D sometimes starts under or overexposing, but it does this with my four manual lenses, so I will not blame the lens. Chromatic aberrations are visible at f3,5, less so at f4, and gone beyond that. It's the only IQ flaw I can point at.
The lens does create an issue with auto white balance, when the main part of the image is a sunlit body of water, or other bluish subject. It then creates a slight purple cast, that my other lenses do not show. Using the correct WB setting solves the problem (apparently the camera selects day fluorescent as the WB setting when this happens).
Manual focus is a breeze, and the focus ring rotates 180 degrees so your focus will be accurate. I'm not using a split screen, the K20D tells me when I'm focused.
Macro mode gives you 1:2,2 enlargment, and superb images.
I'm looking at autofocus offerings on the market, and I find nothing that compares with this lens without being willing to spend a thousand dollars. And all I would gain is a half-stop and autofocus (since the camera meters at the press of a single button even with manual lenses).
As you can probably tell, I love this lens. It has the best price/quality ratio I have ever seen for a lens. It's got that special something that makes me want to keep it even if I replace it with an AF tele zoom.
| | | | | Site Supporter Registered: January, 2007 Location: Toronto Posts: 17,892 | | Review Date: March 18, 2008 | Recommended | Price: $350.00
| Rating: 8 |
| Pros: | fast, constant apature, sharp, true one ring zoom | | Cons: | suffers zoom creep, no tripod mount, heavy | |
Overall this is an excellent lens, even considering the negatives.
The $350 price indicated is the price I paid in canadian dollars in 1981 when I bought the lens. The version I have has a "macro switch" which sets the lens to 70mm and quick focus is achieved by moving the zoom collar in and out, fine focus by turning the collar.
Biggest negative is not really the weight but the combination of weight and lack of tripod mount. This puts a lot of stress out on the body and body mount, and on many film SLRs caused temporary loss of power due to distortion of the camera frame.
Lens creep also made it difficult to use on a copy stand when oriented vertically.
Focus is quickly and easily achieved with a 180 degree rotation of the focusing collar from minimum to infinity. this is a big enough range to allow fine focus control, but small enough to allow for rapid aquisition of focus. It should be noted that the front group rotates with focus, requiring readjustment of polarizing or graduated ND filters after focusing.
The slip on metal front lens cap has a tendancy to fall off when carrying the lens, and there is no lens hood.
Note that for mounting on a pentax DSLR it requires modification of the protective shield around the apature activation lever.
in terms of apature accuracy, and metering on a DSLR,
-the lens seems to have a slight -1/2 stop metering error wide open on an *istD, which changes linearly to correct exposure when stopped down fully to F22. This is consistent at both maximum and minimum focal length.
- On a K10D the lens meters correctly wide open, and moves to over exposing by 2 stops by F22 (minimum apature)
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