William Robb asks: >Just for curiosities sake, what do you M42 screw heads think of >the Super Takumar 35mm f3.5 and the 55mm f1.8? I think they're the lenses to use. Creamy smooth but sharp images in the way only Pentax can do. The best of any 35mm and 50/55mm to my eye (although the FA35mm f2.0 shot by Gerhard Fischer in the Nov. 2000 PUG http://pug.komkon.org/00nove/index.html looks promising for a scanned image). I use them whenever possible. That said, the 35mm f2.0 and 50mm f1.4 receive a lot of use wide open since I take many pictures indoors without flash and outdoors in the evening under dreary, rainy Oregon skies. The SMC screwmount versions of these two are the same formula. They are significantly better under a specific circumstance. When there is possibility of flare, the Super Taks can wash out colors throughout or in swaths from the light source; aperture artifacts are common when the sun is in the line of sight. The SMC versions eliminate much and sometimes all of this. The 55mm has been mentioned as being less sharp than the 50mm f1.4. The 50mm appears sharper at f2 but at f4 it's a toss-up; no contest after. The award goes to the 55. There has been more than one comment that the 55mm is soft through f5.6 and then becomes sharp at f8. I like shots at f8 on this lens better than shots at f8 on any of my other lenses; but it's not just the sharpness. All lenses are compromises and the 55mm is a pleasing compromise. Mark Rofini - This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org .
