The Photography Show 2018

Has anybody been and got anything interesting to report?
Was the train set bigger this year?

I went on Saturday. It wasn't as busy as expected.

The Pentax stand was pretty small and wasn't very busy whilst I was there. You could handle quite a lot gear including the new 50mm (no card in the camera) and the 645Z. Staff were chatty without saying much new.

Canon had a huge presence.. Lots of interesting (to me) smaller stands.

It was definitely worth a visit, lots of stands and stuff to look at.

Went today and saw the discussion with Mary McArtney which was really interesting. The Pentax stand was well positioned near the entrance, tried the new DFA* 50mm lens which was very impressive but likely to cost around £1200. As a K1 user they were pushing me in the direction of trading up to a new K-1 Mark II rather than having the motherboard replaced, quoting a price rather higher than the £450 indicated in the news thread. Managed to resist blowing a fortune on a H********d MF mirrorless, bit like test driving a Porsche, could almost be tempted if I thought I could get away with it. Came away with rather more mundane print papers and a neat little led light.

£1200!!!

The FA-50 f/1.4 is the pick of my lenses and its' rrp is £399 (recently £249 at SRS, bought by me a few years ago new at Jessops for £150 paid for mainly with Tesco Clubcard vouchers) and the D-FA 40 f/2.8 is £349.

What makes the new 50 so much better as to justify a three-fold difference in price vs the FA50?

A higher price, whatever that might be, is being justified by making the lens to Zeiss standards. Basically it will be a lens that intends to blow the competition out of the water, so to speak, and be on a par with the best modern Zeiss lenses. We know that costs serious money.

The price justification is down to us really - if enough of us are convinced by the IQ (and other qualities) or the Hype (depending on your viewpoint), and "splash the cash" then it will be a success for Ricoh. The price will drop somewhat over time, but not down to FA prices, as for how much better it will be - then look at the opinions of users of the DA*55/1.4 - I know several people who have/had it and they all say it is a significant step up from the earlier fast fifties. The DA*55/1.4 is my most used "standard" lens by a long way - and apart from proper full-frame coverage I'll be interested to see how the D-FA*50/1.4 improves over this one

I don't think I would ever pay that sort of amount for something of such limited functionality.

At the risk of repeating myself, I wouldn't bother putting a lens built (and priced) to Zeiss standards on my camera until the autofocus performed to the equivalent of "Zeiss standards" too.

I've never liked the FA-50 f/1.4...... f/1.7's are sharper. The A Series 50mm f/1.4 is however excellent and as good as the f/1.7's

My sharpest 50-58mm (on digital) was a Chinon f/1.4. Unfortunately I don't know where it went to. I've got about 4 of the buggers and the bulging rear element can be problematic and I might have swapped it over on two lenses and now don't know which You have to watch out for flare though with the Chinons. The FA 50mm macro is very sharp.

The new 50mm f/1.4 is mainly for the list tickers

Has anyone checked to see if the K-1 can let more than f/1.7's worth of light through?

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The Zeiss lenses are primarily manual focus, so Zeiss lens quality plus Pentax AF would actually be a pretty useful combination IMHO.

Because it's 3 times the size.

Seriously though I would guess design and technology costs amount to a fair chunk of money whereas the FA lens has paid for itself many times over. I had the DA* 55mm for a while but hated it's af speed which is the slowest of any lens I have tried, manual focus was a lot quicker.

I could be tempted by this one but it would need to come down a fair bit as it would have very limited use where I am concerned. The only 50mm I have now is the FA 1.7

We all know what happened the last time Pentax went head to head with Zeiss.

Super Taumar .

So , well done Ricoh

Regards

Ita also intresting that , Tokina have licensed the rights to make this lens to their own specification , in Cannon and Nikon mounts.

I can hardly wait to read the feedback

Regards

It won’t have the Pentax spec glass and coatings on other mounts so not directly comparable. The declared aim is to produce better glass than Sigma’s Art lenses and as John says on a par with Zeiss so a worthy response to them both for snubbing the K-mount on their recent offerings. A Zeiss rep told me the market for K-mount was too small to be worthwhile but it looks like they are going to bed with Sony anyway. The new glass will be designed to get the best out of high megapixel sensors and that clearly is where Ricoh sees the future.

Back to TPS, an interesting point Mary McArtney made was that for her personal projects she still uses film and carries around in her bag a small film camera; her reason is that images from small digital camera sensors won’t be good enough for a large print but this isn’t a problem using film. Also uses an iPhone for research photos and Instagram as they don’t need to be print quality.