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Japanese blogger デジ眼.com has tested the performance of the two normal 50mm wide aperture primes from Pentax and Nikon. Look at the full size samples with the different aperture setting.
Pentax FA 50mm F1.4 on K10D vs. Nikon AF Nikkor 50mm F1.4 on D80. All pictures taken with the same exposure (in manual mode). Untouched JPEGs straight out of the cameras.
Both lenses are really good. It's hard to tell one from another.
Nice. I think that 50mm f/1.4 along with the Tamron 18-200mm will make a nice starter kit for me.
Pentax FA 50mm F/1.7 is a bit sharper...
Other than the fact that 50mm is too long for the format.
I just got an SDM lens and while I have no optical opinion on it yet (I got a 16-50), I have a mechanical opinion, and that is that I don't want any more non SDM lenses.
The SDM is one of those Oh my gosh improvements
Is SDM really so much faster?
It is visibly faster, and quiet enough that
you have to put your ear up to the lens to hear it.
Part of the design of the 16-50 at least is a very short travel for the focus range.
Unlike the oldhand focus that took most of a turn on a helical to find the focus the 16-50 only
moves about a 1" and the positioning is done what appears to be a stepper motor, and is really faster than your eye can figure out that it is out of focus so if you hold the shutter button down (to have it active) and pan from a distant object to a close object your eye won't see anything out of focus even though the mechanics have moved from one extreme to the other.
Likewise if you want to manually adjust the focus because you don't like what the motor did, it has a slip clutch override, andyou can easily turn
the focus ring to manually tinker with the focus if you want/need to.
Just to see the difference I put the lens on my istD, and it works there in the traditional way
but that way sucks in comparison.
I was almost ready to dump my perfectly good istD on ebay until I figured out I had another
problem that I need it for, and that is the Flash
issue.
All my flash units are of the older and now unsupported (by the K10) technology.
Where I'm really stuck with with the macro flash.
I have an 080C ringlight flash unit which works as well on my istD as it did on the SuperProgram it was designed to work with, but alas, no work on the K10.
Thus it seems that the istD has to stay around
for macro work, until a macro suitable flash solution appears for the K family of digitals.
And I'm not sure there is a 'macro' solution
any thoughts????
Thanks for sharing your impressions. It sounds like SDM is really great improvement.
>> Where I'm really stuck with with the macro flash.
Yeah :( No P-TTL macro flash. And I haven't heard of any plans yet.
IT seems like a functional macro system is mission critical to having a phtographic system.
It takes a little imagination to mount a bellows on the digital camera, but it can be done (by putting a short extension tube behind it) but if you don't have a macro flash solution one whole
segment of photography is missing.
Over all it seems to me that taking the flash sensor out of the camera body is a step backwards
but maybe it is a precursor of some other really elegant solution they have in mind and not just a way to save 50 cents worth of parts in the cost of manufacture.
It wouldn't surprise me if Pentax delibertely broke the backwards compatibility of the flash units just so they could sell everyone a new flash unit. I now have 3 perfectly good
flash units that won't work on my K10 of which the Pentax ring light is one.
If you know anyone that is anyone, I sure would appreciate a clue as to how they expect us to take a macro photo with their equipment.
Well, they've promised some kind of "surprise" soon:
http://pentaxlife.com/some-leaks-rumors-and-ramblings
Let's wait for pre-Xmas announcements...
Wait I will. With Hoya being a glass maker, one can assume they bought Pentax so they could sell some glass. If they are doing what they ought to be be doing, it is flogging their whole announced family of SDM lenses into production and stuffing the shelves of every retailer with them before the Christmas selling season.
Dear rvannatta,
Yes I also have the same issue with my ample collected strobes...so what is your problem...set the camera to manual ox "X" set the F stop as the same as indicated on your "Auto" thyristor in use strobe ( I own a Sunpak 443AF, Metz 40Z3, + a Vivitar 3700, those are the ONLY ones that had very low trigger voltage + Central contact only!), so NO problem with the hot shoe contact, among my other 5 strobes two of them Hammer type (Sunpak 522/Metz CL-4),...that can't be use with the K10D. Believe me I can live 100 years with this "Flash issue!
Peace,
Alex 007
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