Forgot to say that I was think of asking around £200.

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R

Hi all,

I'm going to eBay my FA* 24/2 AL[IF] lens shortly, but just in case anyone here is interested, please PM me.

That way I know it's going to go to a good home

It's in very good, but not mint condition. I have some pictures both of and by the lens if anyone wants to see them...

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Cheers
Reuben0

Photozone.de has tests of most of these lenses on the Nikon D200 (which is similar in performance to the K10D): http://www.photozone.de/8Reviews/index.html.

More importantly, there are also a raft of full resolution sample photos to download and pixel peep.

Klaus tends to use the same subjects for these shots (eg the horse statue) and so it's possible to compare the renderings of different lenses and cameras quite easily.

Myself, I find the Zeiss sample shots not to my taste (particularly the 85mm/1.4), but it's a personal thing!

R

I have to agree with George here.

And all the sniping makes this thread rather depressing reading

R

I bought a Katz Eye to go in my D and was very pleased with it. When I got the K10D, I moved the Katz Eye over. As a replacement to go in the D, I bought one of these Chinese Minolta-derived screens for about £12 inc P&P.

Apart from it being a little darker (and thus requiring around -0.3EV permanently dialled in), it's actually better for manual focussing than the Katz Eye . The micro-prism angles are more acute which make it easier to focus my venerable fast primes. The micro-prism/split-ring area is also somewhat smaller, which I prefer.

I feel a little foolish having paid over £100 for the Katz Eye (including P&P, duty etc), when the £12 Chinese screen does an arguably better job (apart from requiring greater exposure correction)

R

At the bottom of the article it says that the Canon, Sony and Tamron options will be tested next month. But still it makes a welcome change

Even more encouraging is the breaking of the Adobe hegemony with AP reviewing Picture Window Pro next week

I was also rather amused by the letter from a Canon user bemoaning the lack of availability of a certain Canon accessory. The official response from Canon says that "stock allocated to the UK was relatively modest". Not just a Pentax problem then

R

Yes, the erroneous K10D exposures from of stop-down metering have rendered my old lens collection pretty useless

Good job I kept the *ist D...

R

Yoshihiko Takinami tested many of the 28's on film a few years ago (http://www.takinami.com/yoshihiko/photo/lens_test/pentax_28-30.html). He ranks them like this:

K28/3.5, K28/2 >= M28/3.5 >= FA28/2.8AL >>> M28/2.8 (old) >M28/2.8 (later), A28/2.8, F28/2.8

My own subjective experience tends to bear out the conclusion that the K28/3.5 is the best Pentax 28, but YMMV

Reuben0

I've taken many hundreds of shots with the FA* 24 and I love and loath it in equal measure...

It's good on film (apart from quite high levels of CA) but sucks somewhat on digital. It's very soft wide open. Very sharp in the centre at f5.6, but the borders are never great. CA levels are very high, I find it difficult to focus, it's big and heavy, has an impractical hood and the silver paint is very easily scratched. Apart from all that it's great

In this range, the A24/2.8 is probably a better bet at half the size & weight and about a third the cost and optically it's a much more consistent performer...

I was think of getting one of the new PK-mount Zeiss 25's, but I'm not entirely convinced by the sample pictures at photozone.de.

Cheers,
Reuben0

The register codes still seem to work though

I've registered mine just now!

Cheers
Reuben0