Just did a quick test with a SMC-M 50mm F1.7 on my DS.

Camera set to M, aperture set on the aperture ring. Focus manually then press the AE-L button. Camera stops down and sets what it thinks is the shutter speed for correct exposure. Changing the aperture setting and then pressing the AE-L button again causes the camera to stop down again and work out the correct shutter setting for that aperture.

On my camera this works very well, except for one slightly odd thing, which is that the camera never works out a shutter setting of more than 1.5 seconds. For example for the test I just did in my study:

F1.7 - 1/20s
F4 - 1/4s
f8 - 1s
f16 - 1.5s
f22 - 1.5s

The first 3 result in a correct exposure but the last two don't. In fact if I put the lens cap on and press the AE-L button a shutter speed of 1.5 seconds gets set no matter what the aperture is.

Regards
Steve

Liam,

I'm sure you'll get enjoyment out of the lens. I used mine quite happily for a couple of years before it's limitations started to bother me. I mainly used it handheld and that meant using it wide open pretty much all the time and, like pretty much every lens, it's not at it's best wide open. On digital you can boost the ISO to enable a smaller aperture to be used and that should help a lot.

Regards
Steve

Looks similar to the powerzoom one I had, but it's been a while since I owned it so I can't be sure.

The one I had was ok, certainly a better performer than the FA 28-80 powerzoom it was partnered with. It should given decent results with on digital although I'd expect the viewfinder image to be quite dim at the long end. It's quite light and compact so should be good for carrying about. With digital being able to bump the ISO to get a decent shutter speed handheld should be a big help as conditions used to have to be pretty bright for it to be useable handheld with the ISO 100 slide film I preferred back in those days.

Regards
Steve

Is that the powerzoom or normal zoom version?

Who cares about bodies - I want the lens range enhanced!

The one lens I've had with a slide out lens hood was a cheap 3rd party 135mm F2.8 (a Super Ozeck or some such) and it seemed an excellent idea.

I repeated the tests at 28mm, this time also including the SMC-FA 28-200. Wide open at F4 there wasn't much to choose between the 28-200 and the 19-35, however the 18-55 was noticeably softer in the centre and in the edges.

At F11 there was very little in it between all three lenses.

One thing I noticed in both sets of tests was that the 18-55 produced a slightly darker exposure than the other two, despite the same aperture and shutter speed being used.

The charts were at a distance similar to where one might place the foreground interest in a wide angle shot, so I think it is important that a wide angle lens is capable of sharp results at short ranges. The tests do back up what I'd thought of the lens in use though, in that I've found it ok for snapshots but very soft.

Centre of Pentax 18-55 at f11




Centre of Pheonix 19-35mm at f11




Corner of Pentax 18-55 at f11




Centre of Pheonix 19-35mm at f11

I've done the first couple of tests of the 18-55 now. This was looking at ultra-wide performance compared with the only other lens I now have covering a similar focal range, a cheap Pheonix 19-35mm (same lens as the Vivitar and Cosina) I used to use with 35mm film.

The camera was mounted on a sturdy Manfrotto tripod and head and the 2s mirror up setting was used on my DS. I had two of the targets set-up - one in the centre of the frame and one in the corner.




Centre of Pentax 18-55mm at f3.5




Centre of the Pheonix 19-35mm at f3.5




Corner of Pentax 18-55mm at f3.5




Corner of Pheonix 19-35mm at f3.5