Pentax primes, vs Contax Zeiss ones

Hi,

Recently I saw some pictures, 12x18", taken with Planar 50mm/1.4 and 28mm and must say that Planar is really great lens. I just wonder how Pentax FA 35mm/2.0 , FA 50mm/1.4 and Limited performes vs Zeiss glass. I know Contax is dead but shooting slides and scanning to have big prints for exhibition is still very good idea. No interpolation needed and no degradation process from oryginal image. Any comparisons are welcome. I consider buying FA 77mm lens
Greetings
Alek

Aleksander Kozak said:

Hi,
Recently I saw some pictures, 12x18", taken with Planar 50mm/1.4
and 28mm and must say that Planar is really great lens. I just
wonder how Pentax FA 35mm/2.0 , FA 50mm/1.4 and Limited performes
vs Zeiss glass.

Click to expand...

Amatuer Photographer magazine had the Zeiss 50/1.4 for the Contax slr line as their reference lens. After testing the 43 Limited it became their new reference. Both the 31 Limited and the 77 Limited is arguably better than the 43mm. Draw your own conclusions...

Voff said:

Amatuer Photographer magazine had the Zeiss 50/1.4 for the Contax
slr line as their reference lens. After testing the 43 Limited it
became their new reference. Both the 31 Limited and the 77 Limited
is arguably better than the 43mm. Draw your own conclusions...

Click to expand...

I haven't read that magazine but I would be very surprised if they had found the FA43 to be superior in term of sharpness, especially overal sharpness. I have found mine to be sharp in the centre from f2.8, but edge/corner sharpness remain very weak until f8-11, but still nowhere near as good as A50/1.4 (FF I mean). I may have a lemon, but my conclusion matches the old photodo result, and a few ex-FA43 owners had the same conclusion too.
--
Alan Chan
http://www.pbase.com/wlachan/

http://kmp.bdimitrov.de/lenses/primes/normal/FA43f1.9.html
Quote:

"The FA 43/1.9 Limited provides decently high resolution at f/2.8 and is fantastic from f/4 to f/11. Amateur Photographer made this lens their reference normal lens, and magazines like Outdoor Photography and FotoMagazin agree that it is a very sharp and contrasty lens, practically free of flare, with some barrel distortion. What makes this lens so special is its focal length (most users prefer it over a 50 mm lens) and its bokeh — exceptionally smooth and pleasing at all apertures, rendering light sources at night especially beautiful, and making pictures seem very natural and "3-dimensional."

--
http://www.homepages.ucl.ac.uk/~ucsacco/

wlachan said:

I haven't read that magazine but I would be very surprised if they
had found the FA43 to be superior in term of sharpness, especially
overal sharpness. I have found mine to be sharp in the centre from
f2.8, but edge/corner sharpness remain very weak until f8-11, but
still nowhere near as good as A50/1.4 (FF I mean). I may have a
lemon, but my conclusion matches the old photodo result, and a few
ex-FA43 owners had the same conclusion too.

Click to expand...

Then you have a dog. Wide open it is on par with the Pentax 50mm lenses. From 2.8 it is sharp from corner. From F4 it is simply sublime and I don't think it can be improved upon in terms of sharpness and resolution. At F:11 sharpness starts to decline due to diffraction.
The test in question provided both pictorial samples and MTF graphs.

Photodo, BTW is generally bull to be avoided only surpassed by CDI tests in the "not reliable" department.

The only negative about the 43Limited is high levels of distortion (deliberate) and its performance wide open, but then again the latter is no worse than the various Pentax 50mm lenses people praise...

Voff said:

Then you have a dog. Wide open it is on par with the Pentax 50mm
lenses. From 2.8 it is sharp from corner. From F4 it is simply
sublime and I don't think it can be improved upon in terms of
sharpness and resolution. At F:11 sharpness starts to decline due
to diffraction.
The test in question provided both pictorial samples and MTF graphs.
Photodo, BTW is generally bull to be avoided only surpassed by CDI
tests in the "not reliable" department.
The only negative about the 43Limited is high levels of distortion
(deliberate) and its performance wide open, but then again the
latter is no worse than the various Pentax 50mm lenses people
praise...

Click to expand...

May I ask if you have this lens and used on 35mm film?
--
Alan Chan
http://www.pbase.com/wlachan/

Caat said:

http://kmp.bdimitrov.de/lenses/primes/normal/FA43f1.9.html

Click to expand...

I am aware of that, but sometimes only the good reviews were being shown. And I am quite aware what I have seen after owning this lens for 6 years. Not trying to bash it, just speak what I see.
--
Alan Chan
http://www.pbase.com/wlachan/

Voff said:

The test in question provided both pictorial samples and MTF graphs.
Photodo, BTW is generally bull to be avoided only surpassed by CDI
tests in the "not reliable" department.

Click to expand...

Well I guess I belong to the minority as I have found photodo results match my finding with the lenses that I have owned pretty well. In fact I think it's the most trustworthy one, or used to anyway.
--
Alan Chan
http://www.pbase.com/wlachan/

wlachan said:

Well I guess I belong to the minority as I have found photodo
results match my finding with the lenses that I have owned pretty
well. In fact I think it's the most trustworthy one, or used to
anyway.

Click to expand...

This is the test that put the Pentax FA* 80-200/2.8 on par with the Tamron 28-200 lens generally regarded as being crappy.
I rather trust user feedback....

wlachan said:

May I ask if you have this lens and used on 35mm film

Click to expand...

Yes. I don't own a digital camera.

Voff said:

This is the test that put the Pentax FA* 80-200/2.8 on par with the
Tamron 28-200 lens generally regarded as being crappy.
I rather trust user feedback....

Click to expand...

I don't have that FA*80-200/2.8 so I cannot verify that result, but just because it got 3.2, doesn't mean that or all their results were flawed. It could be a lemon, camera vibration (Z-1p has a lot), wrobbling tripod adaptor (quite small for this lens), or they were actually correct. But just for comparsion, my FA*200/2.8 is not that sharp wide open (almost all Pentax lenses aren't), and I would not be surprised if Pentax was unable to design the FA*80-200/2.8 super sharp. Throughout the Pentax 135 history, their telezooms are always weak compared to the best tele-zooms on the market. Not to mention almost all lenses got praised regardless of their optical performance. It has a lot of emotion involved when writing user reviews (not brand or people specific).
--
Alan Chan
http://www.pbase.com/wlachan/

I've owned and used Contax SLR and G system cameras. The Zeiss lenses made for them are exceptionally good. (I had 35, 50, 100mm lenses for the 139ma SLR body; 16, 28, 45, 90mm lenses for the G2 body.)

I consider the Pentax lenses I have now (DA14, FA20-35, FA35, FA50, FA77, FA135) pretty close to on par or better with them, with some variation across the range (some Zeiss lenses are better than the matching Pentax, and vice versa). At least on the DSLR body...

My prints to A3 and 13x19 inch sizes made with the Pentax DS and these lenses look better than most of my 35mm negatives, scanned at 2900 to 4000 ppi and printed to the same size. That's more a matter of the clean nature of properlly exposed digital capture and ease of image processing it than anything to do with the lens quality.

Godfrey

Aleksander Kozak said:

Recently I saw some pictures, 12x18", taken with Planar 50mm/1.4
and 28mm and must say that Planar is really great lens. I just
wonder how Pentax FA 35mm/2.0 , FA 50mm/1.4 and Limited performes
vs Zeiss glass.

Click to expand...

Alek; First a little background before my lens preferences are revealed.

I was a full time shooter for 26 years. Owned and used Hasselblad , Pentacon 6 and
Pentax 645 medium format systems, as well as 35mm Contax Leica RF, Nikon and

Pentax systems. The Zeiss lenses are special. But in medium format the bodies that they

were attached to were just too clunky to allow me to continue to use those systems.

Switched to Pentax 645 in 1984 and never looked back. The Pentax lenses were as sharp

as the Zeiss lenses, but the color rendition produced by them was slightly different than

that produced by the Zeiss lenses. The Pentax lenses were overall more bang for the buck
than the Zeiss lenses in medium format.

In 35MM format Pentax, Leica, and Zeiss Contax lenses were the contenders for me.
The Nikon lenses produced very good saleable images, but the standout images

most often selected by the customers were produced by the Pentax and Zeiss lenses,

followed by the Leica lenses. Once again the Pentax lenses were the most bang for the buck.
Recently I have had the opportunity to use the Pentax Limited 77 and 43 lenses.

They are outstanding. I would not hesitate to select a Pentax Limited lens over any other
lens in their focal length range. Your mileage may vary.....

--
Crazy old man! Slow down. You are way to old to be
hunting hemi's in that 66GTO.

Aleksander,

I think that this article on Luminous Landscape might interest you.

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/columns/sm-02-05-02.shtml

Regards,

Tom

I was interested in getting a sharper "normal" lens for my DL. I thought the 31 limited would be a nice upgrade over my Tokina A 28/2.8. However, I was astonished by the price of the 31. I realize that it's a "Limited" but to charge more for the 31 than the 77 seems unreasonable. I guess I'll get the FA35 instead.

As the FA35 outresolves your sensor, is well know to be a very good preformer, is very suitable for a normal lens and also has a good manual focusing ring it simply is a very good option.

I'm also astonished by the price of the FA31. Canon and Minolta and Nikon optically equivalent, or very near equivalent, lenses are going for 1000+ USD, or are non existent. Imo anyone choosing Pentax for the lenses in the wide to normal to short tele range did a good choice.

--
Jonas

Robert Chow said:

I was interested in getting a sharper "normal" lens for my DL. I
thought the 31 limited would be a nice upgrade over my Tokina A
28/2.8. However, I was astonished by the price of the 31. I realize
that it's a "Limited" but to charge more for the 31 than the 77
seems unreasonable. I guess I'll get the FA35 instead.

Click to expand...

Robert Chow said:

I was interested in getting a sharper "normal" lens for my DL. I
thought the 31 limited would be a nice upgrade over my Tokina A
28/2.8. However, I was astonished by the price of the 31. I realize
that it's a "Limited" but to charge more for the 31 than the 77
seems unreasonable. I guess I'll get the FA35 instead.

Click to expand...

At USD800 the FA31 is indeed expensive by Pentax standard. But what Pentax didn't made it clear, at least outside Japan, is that the FA31 has molded glass AL, floating element design, and some LD/ED glasses. No other Pentax lens has ever received all these treatments in a single package. Pentax seem to spend more R&D on this lens than they normall would.
--
Alan Chan
http://www.pbase.com/wlachan/

Robert Chow said:

I was interested in getting a sharper "normal" lens for my DL. I
thought the 31 limited would be a nice upgrade over my Tokina A
28/2.8. However, I was astonished by the price of the 31. I realize
that it's a "Limited" but to charge more for the 31 than the 77
seems unreasonable. I guess I'll get the FA35 instead.

Click to expand...

The FA31 is indeed an exceptional performer, but I found it bulky, heavy and hated the fixed lens hood. I just about completely stopped using it because of those things and sold it to someone who likes it more.

I now use the FA20-35/4 AL and FA35/2 AL for my work in this focal length range and find that they produce very nearly the same quality, both together cost less than the FA31, and I'm happier. Rendering quality is off from the 31 by just a tiny bit, but that has not proven to be an issue in any of the work I've done with them.

The prime is, of course, a better performer than the zoom, and two stops faster means a lot in low light. I'll likely complement it with a DA21/3.2 at some point soon, then it will be a tussle as to whether to carry the zoom or the two primes.

I really wish Pentax would make a compact, DA 28mm f/2 Limited lens ... but I've said that before. ;-)

Godfrey

wlachan said:

Robert Chow wrote:
At USD800 the FA31 is indeed expensive by Pentax standard. But what
Pentax didn't made it clear, at least outside Japan, is that the
FA31 has molded glass AL, floating element design, and some LD/ED
glasses. No other Pentax lens has ever received all these
treatments in a single package. Pentax seem to spend more R&D on
this lens than they normall would.

Click to expand...

What I don't understand is: Why don't I have this lens yet?
Do I not suffer from LBA?
When a lens is presented before me, do I not yearn for it?
Is it not a FL I do not yet have?
Is it not a delight to the eye, both on the camera, and on print?

Oh Silver Limited, thou art mine White whale!
Whyfore doth thou eludest me?

I just put an order in for the 21mm at Adorama. It's not even
silver! Have I gone mad?

Mayhap I needst to seek wisdom at the feet of the King.

--
cheers!

Gunn

-- Get a big lens and get closer™.

http://www.dpreview.pentaxistDS.photoshare.co.nz

http://www.y3m.net/penwik/pmwiki.php/Main/PentaxLensWiki

Hi Alek,

I formerly had Contax (with Zeiss-lenses) and Rollei (Zeiss and Rollei-lenses) and Leica (just to give them a try with 90 and 135mm lenses) and Canon EOS (with some primes) beside my Pentax gear - old film-slr-days......

When comparing them I found the Zeiss lenses to be best but very closely followed by the Pentax primes K 1.2/50 and K 2.5/135mm.

As for 2.8/28mm the Zeiss-lens was best, followed by Rolleinar, Canon EF, Pentax A, Canon FD.

As for 35mm Zeiss (2.8) was best followed by Canon (2.0/35), Pentax (2.8) and Rolleinar (2.8).

As for 50mm lenses (many to compare) I found the Rollei Planar 1.8 to be best, Zeiss (1.4 as well as 1.7) and Pentax K 1.2 nearly same, followed by Pentax A 1.7, Canon FD 1.8, Canon EF 1.8 (sorry not to compare the other Pentax lenses)

As for 135mm lenses I found the Zeiss 2.8 to be best, followed closely by Pentax K 2.5 and Rolleinar 2.8, then Leica 2.8 followed closely by Zeiss Jena Sonnar 3.5 and Pentacon 2.8, then Canon FD 2.8, Mamiya 2.8 (in M42 mount) and Olympus 2.8..

As for 90/100 mm I only compared Canon 2.0 (best) with Leica R 2.8/90 and Tamron SP 2.5/90 (close but not exactly same as Leica).

I sold nearly all film-slr equipment so I cannot make the same with dslr....

As for the Zeiss-lenses: They had something special in their rendering, colour-reproduction beside mechanical quality. If I could use a Distagon or Planar or 135mm Sonnar on my DS I would really like it!

--
Paul