Pentax DA 50mm F1.8

Has anyone got a DA 50mm F1.8, is it as good as the DA35mm ?

I have just got this lens, so far i am very pleased with it. The only other AF prime i have is the the 35. I will try and post some samples and pics tommorrow. Until then there are couple of pics in my gallery- both are taken with the lens.

The lens seems very sharp, i think stopped down the detail the lens produces is more than my k-x is capable of! At F1.8 it not particlualrily sharp, by 2.8 it is pretty sharp by f4 they are very sharp.

The background blurs out smoothly in most cases

Although very similar the construction of this lens feels a little better than the 35, the focus ring has more resistance.

I have had a go at creating some test shots. They are all RAW and with Elements default sharpness setting. Its not a very professional effort but i hope ots of use!

They can be found here, if anyone lets me know how i will embed them

http://www.flickr.com/photos/punkrockemo/sets/72157630976312434/

Right click on the image.
Choose medium 800
Right click on the image and choose "Copy image URL"
Come to this thread.
Click on the image button below
Position the cursor between the ][ and click paste.
Job done.

Peg at f/4



Peg at f/1.8



Cheers, Kris.

Thanks Mark, first shots I've seen with this lens, looks good.

I think the lens is quite expensive though I was expecting it to be about the same price as the DA 35mm I think at the moment I'd rather pay the £54 more and get the metal mount F1.4

Those rounded blades make for smooth bokeh, I like it...

How does the af compare to the da35 the fastest focussing glass I have..

I agreee the bokeh is smooth, in some cases, it gets a bit thrown by the background, see Guinea pig pictures below the thick Hay in the background has created lines in the bokeh.

The lens is not as fast as the 35 unfortunatley, its to quick to make adjustments but from close to infinity or the other way around it takes a bit longer.


F 1.8 with sharpening- i am happy with this





F1.8 again, shows thick hay has thrown bokeh




I thought of the 1.4 to as the price was similar but decided to go for the 1.8, never understood the fuss about plastic mounts.

Thanks for the advise Kris

has anyone seen any official reviews of this yet?

Can't see the point when you can get an FA50/1.4

QuickShift, rounded aperture blades and a smaller lens, plus lower price.

The rounded aperture blades are intended to give a superior rendering especially for portraiture.

Plus probably, if previous dersigns are a guide, the f/1.8 version will have a much flatter field and be more suitable for general optical abuse - close up work in particular.

Those are some of the reasons why.

Unfortunatley it does not actually have quick shift, the manual focusing is an improvement on the DA 35 though.

What do you mean by flatter field

A shame about the QuickShift.

Lenses project an image and without correction it would be spherical rather than flat. The consequence is that the centre could be in focus whilst the edges are out, or vice-versa.

Lenses are corrected for this to make the image field flatter. Macro lenses are more or less completely corrected, but it becomes more difficult with wider aperture lenses.

This is usually more of a problem close up or with flat subjects such as documents. Hence with 50mm lenses f/1.8 designs generally have a flatter field than f/1.4 or f/1.2 designs.

Very naughty of Pentax then, to say that it does have QS.

I played with one briefly at SRS a couple weeks back, and a) noticed how similar to the DA35 it is (which definitely doesn't have QS), and b) didn't recall any QS, so I was surprised at JR saying it has it.

Good for SRS, who have obviously noted this, and removed the error from their version of the features list, which is otherwise copied from Pentax.

Obviously I was under the impression that it did Chris, so it seems there was just an error.

If it doesn't, then I'm pleased that the information is now corrected.

Well yes - I would have made the same error, based on the PentaxImaging web page. That's what I'm criticising, not you at all.

In fact initially, I assumed I'd just misremembered that detail till Punkrockemo confirmed it.