First Few from the D FA 28-105

HD Pentax-D FA 28-105 1:3.5-5.6 ED DC WR

I've just had it a few days, and have been trying it out and getting used to it. Just a few photos trying out various focal lengths and apertures, focus distances etc. Here's some of the keepers taken on a couple of walk arounds ....

Obviously I'm not seeing the full image circle yet ..... I say yet because this is in preparation for an eventual move to a K1 or its successor, but I still wanted the zoom range for aps-c as its useful to me at present.

For impressions, user reports and images of the lens please see this thread in the Lens Forum .....link


All shots with the K7, handheld, SR on

1. ISO 400 / 1/90thsec / F8 / 64mm






2. ISO 200 / 1/180thsec / F9.5 / 53mm





3. ISO 200 / 1/125th / F8 / 28mm






4. ISO 200 1/350th / F9.5 / 105mm







5. ISO 200 / 1/250th / F9.5 / 105mm






6. ISO 400 / 1/125th / F8 / 63mm






7. ISO 200 / 1/250th / F8 / 105mm






8. ISO 200 / 1/200th / F6.7 / 105mm






9. ISO 200 / 1/250th / F5.6 / 95mm






10. ISO 400 / 1/500th / F4.5 / 58mm






11. ISO 200 / 1/250th / F3.5 / 28mm






12. ISO 200 / 1/250th / F5.6 / 53mm




For me its a case at present of 'so far so good' .... plenty to get used to and learn about its strengths and weaknesses . Handling is great which helps a lot, so getting used to it won't be a chore!

Based on these Nigel, it looks to be a great lens, excellent colours, contrast and sharpness.

Regards
David

Agreed

And agreed again!

Some great shots. It looks like it's going to be a beautiful friendship.

Very nice Nigel. You obviously are enjoying your new 'toy'! And it getting great results with the humble K7!

Oh yes, there's the stench of jealousy already inside the photo backpack !

Hey be careful, if you see one, the humble K7 can turn suddenly and has a powerful bite

Thanks for your responses, and David Gareth and Ronnie too .... I can see this new lens staying on the camera for many outings, and of course it makes me feel more prepared for a move to FF one day.

A very nice selection of images, Nigel.

I'm no expert on this (or anything!) but the amount and character of the depth-of-field blur look quite impressive to me. Is that natural or enhanced during PP?

Cheers.
Philip

Thanks Philip

I'm pleased to say that there is no software blurring with these, it is completely from the lens optics. In those where the background has dark shadows I used noise reduction to remove colour noise, but this did not change the bokeh effect or add to the blur significantly.

This was one of the things from reviews about the lens that was attractive to me .... That it was reported to render nice OOF backgrounds, at least for a zoom anyway. For portraits with my F35-70, at 70mm I'm finding I don't get enough OOF behind, so I figured that standing back and zooming in more with this 28-105 would help with that a lot.

You've got some excellent results from it there Nigel. Your photos haven't coming out as bright as mine seem, were you dialling the exposure down at all?

Hi John, I checked the EXIF on the DNGs, and there is a fairly even mix of 0 EC and -0.5 EC, so generally it was ok with that half stop negative exposure. That said, where there were bright skies I did experience the burn out as you described .... here's an example of that .....




This particular one had no EC when shot, so I guess I could have taken it with 1/2 or maybe even 1 stop under .... but in this sort of high contrast scene I would be worried about the shadows in that case, as the K7 is not good for noise in underexposed areas. So I guess I have to keep a careful eye on contrast and dynamic range ..... well, at least until I get a K1

It doesn't look so bad. I've checked some where the image isn't too contrasty and the histogram is fairly central but why it should react to clouds the way it does is a bit of a puzzle still. Sharpness isn't bad for a zoom, much better than those late film era standard zooms were, or at least the 28-80 I have which has chromatic aberrations so wide it would swallow the Grand Canyon! Pentax did themselves no favours producing such poor consumer lenses at that time and I think it has taken until now (the K-1) to overcome the general perception that Pentax were poor. It is only those who were Pentax users from before the late film era who had any faith in the brand or those who are using the more recent DSLRs and know better.

That seems like a fair reasoning of the situation .... I'm in the second camp there, but I've grown to appreciate the better of the older lenses thanks to the knowledge on the forums from the longer term Pentax users around. It seems it was hard to get a bad K / M / A series lens, but then easier from the F series onwards.

Those who want to use a high quality film era autofocus lens seem to have to look harder, and still pay quite a high price for those considered the best. Rarity comes into it by now also I suppose ....

Yes indeed. The good lenses were never cheap but it's a shame Pentax ruined their reputation with some horrible cheap plasticky things. I think when they started producing the FAJ's they were trying to improve the quality as I purchased a bargain 18-35 and its truly fine on the K-1 and a tiny fraction of the cost of the newly released 15-30. Then the change to dedicated APSC digital lenses came about and many of even the earliest DA's proved to be really fine lenses, eg the 16-45.
There was a suggestion in a thread last February that some of the DA's would work well on the K-1 with a 1.4X converter. I've already tried indoors with the 12-24 which was the lens mentioned and it seems surprisingly good. I'll make some test shots with various DA APSC zooms plus the Tamron 1.4 converter on the K-1and see what works and what doesn't. I think we may be surprised. The field of view should roughly cover what the lens produces on APSC (in fact slightly more) but on the full frame of the K-1 sensor.