On Jun 29, 2006, at 1:19 AM, Toralf Lund wrote: >> That would be me. I compared the price of a Pentax FA50/1.4 with a >> Leica Summilux-M 50mm f/1.4 ASPH. The Pentax holds up pretty damn >> well for a lens that that is priced at less than 8% as much as the >> Leica lens. >> > In what ways? I mean, where you talking about the sharpness, or > contrast, or... Or just the performance in general?
Overall performance. The Leica lenses generally have some of the best imaging characteristics around, as well as being sharp and contrasty, which they should for the prices they charge for them. The Pentax FA50/1.4 is amazingly close to that standard and is almost being given away by comparison, on price. > At any rate, perhaps a comparison with Canon or Nikon would be more > relevant. I've noticed that both these producers offer 50s that are > considerably less expensive than the FA50/1.4. Canon and Nikon both produce very low cost 50mm lenses in the f/1.8 and f/2 range. While they're not 'bad', they're nowhere near as good as the FA50/1.4 on rendering, or even the Pentax 50/1.7 series. The comparable lenses are the Nikon 50mm f/1.4D AF lens at $280, and a Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM at $295 (B&H Prices). I've used both of them. These are built with the same mount quality as the Pentax FA50/1.4 but aren't quite as good on imaging performance. The only other 50mm f/1.4 lenses in the 35mm SLR range that I think are comparable in performance was the Contax mount Zeiss Planar and the Leica Summicron- R, both of which are substantially more expensive. Pentax continues to offer the budget minded A50/2 lens at $70. It's nowhere near the performance of the f/1.7 and f/1.4 lenses, but it's still a good lens. Godfrey -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
