Wow, that's an excellent price, much better than I paid for mine a few years ago which was the best price I'd ever seen before now.

Jessops no longer show the HD 35/2 on their site, just the older (and more expensive) SMC model...

The 16-85mm is a good replacement for the 18-135mm. It should be a lot sharper and while I had one it was my default landscape lens as it had better IQ than anything else, even some really nice primes.

I had the Sigma 17-50mm at the same time and I didn't sell it just because I had the range covered - having a constant f/2.8 zoom is very useful and the Sigma is very good indeed. One for range/WR and one for speed.

Primes are smaller (if comparable focal length), faster (usually), sharper (almost always but some uber-expensive modern zooms are just as good) and generally make you think more about composition. This last point I think is especially relevant for abstract photography, which by it's nature can use any type of lens - abstract is a way of seeing more than anything else and a prime will encourage that.

Looks like a mythical 20-200mm f/2 to me.

"A" series lenses are manual focus.

"FA" series lenses are autofocus.

Both can have the aperture controlled from the camera body and therefore allow Program and Av modes (with the lens set to the "A" position). The autofocus is the only functional difference though it's possible that some coating improvements were made between the two series (but I wouldn't expect a big difference there). This goes for lenses designed for 135 format as well as 645.

The "D" in "DFA" simply designates that the lens was designed for digital cameras rather than originally for film although I think that the 645 DFA lenses all have an internal focus motor rather than using screw-drive AF and they may not cover the full film 645 image circle.

This is the only used one I can find for sale apart from one at Wex which is inexplicably more expensive than a new one.

https://www.lcegroup.co.uk/Used/Pentax-K3-III-(%3C-50-Shots)_381677.html

I see a head looking upwards (specifically, Groot):




I'd say the photo needs a shallower depth of field to isolate the subject more.

I realised the other day seeing some of the results of an informal summer photography competition at work, that another thing that mobile phone cameras do very badly is creative flare. Flare on a mobile tends to look ugly and striated across a huge swath of the image, without the nice rainbow colour separation you get from a nicely-flaring "proper" lens.

I just got a Lumix 16-35mm f/4 for using on my S5, the first ultra-wide I've had since the Sigma 10-20/3.5.

I also have an Exa camera incoming which includes the waist-level viewfinder. The Exa I have is in much better condition but only has the eye-level viewfinder so this way I'll have both. I think it comes with a 50/2.8 which I'll sell and hopefully recoup the cost of the whole package. I'm looking forward to having a 35mm camera with a WLVF, even if it's a camera as limited as an Exa.

I opened the thread thinking "wow, I'm surprised to see John selling the DFA 21mm" then I read that you bought BOTH colour options!!

She's a real beauty.