On May 3, 2005, at 8:46 AM, David Oswald wrote:
I've got my zoom kit pretty much where I want it for now:
SMC Pentax-DA 16-45mm f/4 ED AL
SMC Pentax-FA 28-105mm f/3.2-4.5 IF AL
SMC Pentax-FA 80-320mm f/4.5-5.6
That's a nice trio ... I have nearly the same except I have the much-maligned F100-300 rather than the FA80-320. It's not a great lens, but it works well enough (stopped down to f/11 or so and used between 175-250mm) for my purposes.
Now I'm working on building my fixed focal length kit. Currently it consists only of the SMC Pentax-FA 50mm f/1.4.
The Pentax A and FA 50/1.4 is a must have ... truly one of the best Pentax lenses out there.
I think I've settled on what to work on accumulating: a 35mm f/2, a 135mm f/2.8, and a 20mm f/2.8. This still leaves me with a gap between 50mm and 135mm,
I don't know that one has to fill in *all* the holes. At this point, I've come to my essential, optional and special purpose lens setups, in order of frequency of use...
Essential: FA28-105/3.2-4.5 A50/1.4 A24/2.8 DA14/2.8 M85/2
Optional: F100-300/4.5-5.6 F35-70/3.5-4.5 Macro F50/1.7 FA135/2.8 A28/2.8 A35/2.8 DA16-45/4 * A50/1.7 * A50/2 * A200/4 * A70-210/4 Macro *
Special purpose: A50/2.8 Macro Extension tube set 2x-S teleconverter
I find I use the F100-300 surprisingly much more than I had expected to, and the DA16-45 significantly less. Lenses with a '*' I'm intending to resell now, I don't use them enough. It's become obvious to me that I use lenses longer than 135mm extremely infrequently, and wider than 24mm I use only periodically.
but currently there's just nothing in the Pentax assortment I can afford at, say, around 85mm, unless I go for an M lens, and even those are not cheap... so I'll live with the gap for now.
I bought the M85/2 from KEH for less than $60 as an "UGLY" lens ... only thing ugly about it was that the focusing helicoid was very sticky. Having it serviced and buying the Pentax hood for it raised the price to $160, which I feel was well worth it. It's a very nice lens with nice, soft rendering wide open and razor sharpness stopped down to f/5.6 or so.
But then along comes the SMC Pentax-DA 40mm f/2.8 Ltd. This looks like an interesting lens. Its pros are: Compactness, great image quality, great bokeh, solid construction. Its cons are: wide open is only f/2.8, and it doesn't seem to fit into any particular suite of lenses.
Is this a lens worth owning instead of my 50mm f/1.4? Or is it an "instead of the 35mm f/2"? I don't see its niche.
I've seen only good things with the DA40, but it is a 'special purpose' lens in my view: for when compactness is the highest priority. I doubt I'll invest in one as I almost never feel I need that compact a lens.
Godfrey
