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Good General Purpose Pentax Lens

Jonathan Ribee

Jonathan Ribee

Unavailable at present
Looking for a decent general purpose lens

Pentax K100D Super
Came with camera: smc Pentax 18-55mm f3.5-5.6
Other: smc Pentax-FA 77mm f1.8 Limited

The limited is great in terms of picture quality, well ahead of the standard lens that came with the camera. But obviously limited to near-ish subjects.

Is there an obvious choice for a better quality lens to replace the 18-55mm one to use as a standard lens - Pentax or Pentax compatible.

Anyone tried any of these...

Pentax DA* 16-50mm f2.8 ED AL IF SDM
Pentax 17-70mm SMC DA F4 AL IF SDM
Pentax smc DA 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 ED AL (IF) DC WR
Tamron AF18-200mm F3.5-6.3 XR Di II LD Aspherical (IF) Macro (Pentax)
Sigma 18-200mm f3.5-f6.3 DC - Pentax fit
Sigma 18-250mm F3.5-6.3 OS Hybrid - Pentax fit

...or would like to suggest something else?
 
the 50mm SMC f/1.4 is my general purpose pentax lens. it's also one of the best lenses pentax has ever made. got mine for $75 on ebay.

if you need two focal lengths (say you're shooting a girl), the better option is to carry two bodies, one for each lens. on a traditional/film 35mm SLR, i always liked having 50mm and 90mm available. for street, 20-something mm and 50mm is a nice coupling.

if you keep using zoom-lenses, it's going to take you a very, very long time to understand which 2 or 3 perspectives suit you best, not to mention the acquiring a proper feel for perspective. most "zooming' should actually be done with one's feet.

like LoTR as book, zoom lenses are for people who don't like lenses.

vuk.
 
I was sort of thinking of coming at the problem the other way around and using a decent-ish quality zoom from a year to decide what fixed lenses I might want. And when you just go out and decide to take a camera with no fixed purpose on what you might shoot. And sometimes I just want more mag. Because you can't get closer unless you want to swim, pole vault the razor wire or fight the big dogs etc.

Although I do use each end of the zoom a lot. Which does suggest two lenses. And maybe a 100-250mm for emergency magnification.

Bother. Thought required. And the 77 1.8 may have been a mistake. Creamy bokeh though.
 
Jonathan Ribee said:
I was sort of thinking of coming at the problem the other way around and using a decent-ish quality zoom from a year to decide what fixed lenses I might want.
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but were you chosing your focal length before framing/shooting? probably not. IME, it's more like, well i'm standing here and i'll press some buttons until i get what i want in the frame.

And sometimes I just want more mag. Because you can't get closer unless you want to swim, pole vault the razor wire or fight the big dogs etc.
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sometimes you want a steak and there is only salad and ice cream on the menu. smothering it in HP sauce is not the answer. unless you've been hired to capture an infidelity, if the shot is not within reach, then it is not. also, pictures taken with a very long lens have some very odd properties and are usually not particularly engaging. for example, long-lens street photography simply doesn't work at all. there is always a sniper-like feel to it. that can be exploited, of course, but not in that many situations.

it would be interesting to spend a day in the field with you and have a go at demonstrating some of this in action.


vuk.

p.s. hold on a bit if you don't want to take me seriously--cliff will be along shortly to offer you the more convenient, bourgeois, canned advice (which you can also get in a photography magazine).
 
Jonathan,

It may be worth googling for some software that analyses all your pics and produces a distribution of most used focal lengths. Could help you identify which focal length to choose for a new (non zoom) lens Had something a few years ago that did this but can't recall what it was called

I'm off to Hobart for the weekend, taking the FA50 and FA35 only. Both very good lumps of glass that tend to cover most situations well enough for me.

Regards,

Stuart.
 
I'm going to answer your question instead of giving you advice about what you shouldn't be doing.

The Pentax 16-45 is a very nice lens - admittedly shorter range than the other zooms you mention and its a wee bit slower but its also substantially cheaper (I got mine for £125). I think Park have some Samsung branded ones in their clearance section for under £200.

I've just bought the Pentax 18-250 as well. Thats primarily going to be used when I'm going up lots of hills and I don't want to lug around a selection of lenses as I'm already carrying a variety of other kit. The prime lens I use most is the Carl Zeiss Flektogon 35/2.4 I bought from SideshowBob.

I only tend to do landscape type shots and a longer lens can be very useful for these in isolating which section of landscape you want.
 
vuk said:
p.s. hold on a bit if you don't want to take me seriously--cliff will be along shortly to offer you the more convenient, bourgeois, canned advice (which you can also get in a photography magazine).
Click to expand...

Actually, in this case I agree with everything you have written above. When I first got my Fuji S5 Pro I went and bought the then new 24-70 zoom from Nikon. I tried it in a bokeh shoot out with the 50mm 1.8 lens and the zoom won hands down. However, neither of them was anywhere near as good in most lighting situations as the 50mm 1.2 AIS. I do almost all my shooting these days with fixed focal length lenses.

In terms of your comment that I would give canned advice recycled from photo magazines - I don't think that is especially fair, especially in view of the fact that you haven't posted a new photo on this forum for many many months, whereas most of my comments are formed by me based on recent and continuing use of actual photo gear, rather than just recycling the last 5 or 6 years worth of photography with just one camera with 50mm/1.4 lens - have you actually used any other camera in the past 12 months ?

By the way, do you just come into the photo room to slag me off ;) Or do you come in here for some other reason [:D]
 
I thought the main reason to use a Pentax was their (allegedly) fabbo primes. I'd sell everything and get a 31mm.
 
Actually the 31mm and 77mm might work.

I think I might go take some pictures with what I've got whilst thinking about what you guys have said and see if this changes my behaviour, and re-visit in a month or two.

Mark - would be very interested in what you think of the 18-250.

Any other thoughts very welcome.

Thanks chaps.

/rumination ON
 
if you keep using zoom-lenses, it's going to take you a very, very long time to understand which 2 or 3 perspectives suit you best, not to mention the acquiring a proper feel for perspective. most "zooming' should actually be done with one's feet.
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I think this is very good advice.

I think most photographers improve when they start using one or two primes and stop looking at the LCD screen on the back of the camera after every shot. Having to be mobile and not relying on instant feedback means you can immerse yourself in what you are looking at rather than in the technology you are holding, and that, I think, is what turns someone into a good photographer: openness to what is in front of them.
 
Initial impressions of the 18-250 are quite favourable. As a walking about lens for recording my wanders I think it will do the job admirably. It means I'm not swapping lenses when I'm out and about on hilltops which tends to result in crap getting in even if I'm careful. I think the 20-120 range is quite good in terms of quality and at least I've got the longer section for rare occasions when I want to zoom in on something. Horses for courses and its not a lens I'd be using if I was going to print something out. Not that I do any of that in any event.

I have a wee bit of cash coming in at the end of the year and for pre-planned photography trips I plan on investing on some ltd primes. Principally the 15, 31 and 77 together with a 100 macro. When I bought the Sigma 50mm I kept it on the camera for a couple of weeks and just practised my framing/composition using that lens and likewise when I got the wee 35mm.


A couple from the 18-250 last week up on the hills when it was blowing a bloody gale.






 
I'm a manual exposure prime lens guy myself.

You could always hire a 16 -50, 17 -70 and see which suits your style - I would imagine they'd both be heavy pieces of glass to lug around though!

A good exercise would be to use just one lens for several months, a year even. I did this, and now all my cameras have just the standard prime lens on them, as it suits my style of photography. Whatever you choose, don't fall into the trap of buying a new lens to "look through". The camera and lens is unconditional. It's the picture which is your judge.
 
Some of the hair shirt persuasion see zooms as the work of the devil, others see them as a means to an end.

A(ny) lens is a way to get an image.
 
Cav said:
A(ny) lens is a way to get an image.
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Kit zooms tend to have terrible distortion at both ends of the range, a limited maximum aperture, horrible bokeh, and annoying ergonomics.

The big boys (Nikon and Canon for instance) put a huge amount of effort into making their pro zooms almost as good as their primes. The 70-200 VR II from Nikon is every bit as good as a 135 prime for instance in terms of sharpness and distortion at that focal length. One of the very best [fuji] lenses for the Hasselblad H series is the [digital only] 35-90 zoom. However the reason why it is digital only is because you need to use Hasselblad's Phocus program to get rid of the various distortions designed into the lens as a compromise to maximise other things about the lens. However, I would not be surprised to find that a huge percentage of fashion and beauty shots you will see in magazines are shot with that distorting zoom lens.
 
But that's the point, Cav: after a couple of uses you notice that something's consistently not quite what you imagined. A zoom is 'neither nowt nor summat.'

I've been playing with a MF camera with a fixed 80mm lens for the last 18months and it has very clearly [ahem] resolved what I thought I wanted from a camera into what I 'need'.

- Which turned out to be two prime alternatives: one very short and 'fast'; and a good '100mm' ish range portrait lense. In the 'nice to have' range would be one additional rather long lense for tight landscape crops and long-distance /compressed architectural perspectives - and that's it, for me. So I'm down to identifying exctly what camera /lense system I want to deliver this for my purposes.

Testing the idea was well worth the cost of entry, so I'd say JR is spot-on in approach.
 
Then that makes it right for you.

A lens does not of itself produce a good or bad photograph - only the photographer does that.
 
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