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Hi Pentaxian friends.
I received my new Pentax DA* SDM 55mm lens yesterday. It was my birthday and the FedEx delivery man brought two boxes for me. One was from Flowers.com and one from a camera shop, which we won't name. I really really wanted to open the camera store box because I was waiting for the lens, but I opened the box with flowers from my wife, who by the way was standing at her desk looking at me. As soon as I opened the box with my lens, I installed it on my K20D and took some pictures of the flowers received. Here is what I shot.
I have to say, that for whatever reason, the lens received had a bit of back focusing problem at the widest aperture and at close proximity of the subjects, in this case the flowers. I checked it more carefully with my Autofocus chart and confirmed the slight backfocusing. Lucky enough, I have the K20D and I fixed that with the custom setting # 35, and it is now perfect. The bokeh is the best I've ever seen, better than the legendary FA 50mm f/1.4.
I played with it through the night and analyzed the results closely and came up with this unofficial review:
Pentax is the king of Prime lenses, particularly with the Limited primes, and the FA 50mm f/1.4 and the FA 31mm f/1.8 which are considered some of the best lenses ever. The DA* SDM 55mm will not be a disappointment. It has an angle of view equivalent to an 82.5mm in the 35mm format and reminds me of the SMCP-FA 85mm f/1.4.
This is now the fastest Pentax DA lens at f/1.4. The retail price is currently at $699.00 but as usual, the street price will be less than that shortly. It is weather-resistant and dust-resistant. It is an SDM lens which means it can only be used with the newer DSLRs. SDM only autofocus (manual focus on non-SDM bodies) as there are no mechanical autofocus transmission shaft, only the supersonic motor. The finish is very good, although never as good as the Limited lenses, but it is weather-resistant and dust-resistant.
The lens has nine elements, in eight groups, and has the famous Pentax Super Protect (SP) coating. The lens has nine diaphragm rounded blades which renders great bokeh. The Autofocus seems to be faster than non-SDM lenses, but what's really impressive is that the autofocus is silent. Apparently, the lens has some color fringing, but they all do and that's easily fixed in post-processing. It renders true-to-life colors and saturation. I couldn't see any barrel distortion or pincushion, and the image did not show any vignetting. I suspect the image circle is bigger than what's necessary for the APS-C sized sensor.
I think this lens will be my all-time favorite.
Thank you for reading,
Yvon Bourque
Yvon Bourque
10 comments:
What an awesome birthday present!(the flowers, of course), Happy Birthday! P.S. That is one Good Looking Lens!
Happy birthday!!!!!!!!!!!
And what a nice present. I'm talking about the flowers, of course ;-)
Happy birthday, Yvon!
A question for you, just out of curiosity. Do you happen to have old K 50/1.2 or A 50/1.2 lenses? I have "A" variety and I find its bokeh and all other rendering qualities quite outstanding. I wonder if you can say a word comparing the two. At present A 50/1.2 is my all-time favorite though ;-).
That seems swell. I'll stick with my tried and trusted FA 50mm f/1.4 for what I expect to be for quite some time though. :)
To Boris,
The older manual 50mm f/1.2 were great, and still are. I actually wish they would make a new DA at f/1.2 as well. I owned one a long time ago during the film era. However, great bokeh is perceived today as a background bluriness that id very smooth (creamy) and with the out of focus objects perfectly round. The glass in today's lenses is better because of the technology used. The bokeh is better because the new DA*55mm has nine blades that are also rounded off at the tip, so it produces perfectly round out of focus images. That said, f/1.2 is unbeatable for low light shooting.
Yvon, that's the whole point. In sooth, I couldn't possibly describe this in words. But what would be called in Russian "drawing" or English "rendering" qualities of A 50/1.2 (also 9 aperture blades, not sure if rounded though) are quite amazing. I don't think that mathematical precision (perfect roundness of OOF objects, etc) is good for photography. Well, good is probably the wrong term here. It is just that it is mathematically dry, regular, repeatable. See what I mean?
Well, the above does not try to diminish new Pentax lens and your new acquisition of course. In fact, I should be looking forward to the shots to be made with this lens.
I for one, would be anticipating new DA 15/4 Limited as I sorely miss a small and light wide angle prime lens.
Happy Birthday!
Thanks for the review. I am curious how the SDM AF speed compared to the 50mm f/1.4 and other non-SDM lenses.
Enche
Well, happy birthday and many merry moments with your new lens.
In case anyone wonders, my birthday comes on 28th of May...
Now I know why the K20D has the ability to adjust slight front and backfocus. I have got a K10D and the DA55 1.4, this combination shows severe backfocus, very noticable on most of the pictures taken with AF in perfect light conditions. The focus chart test shows a backfocus of around 6 to 8mm and not only wide open.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3585/3379040520_e64c960c9e.jpg
It's A great lens I took mine down to the local church and prayed for the K7D....(:
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