How rare is this particular zoom? (...) Comments as to quality?
Lon
Joe wrote:I agree. And the zoom has 24mm, 28mm 30m and 35mm marks, to refer to the Pentax focal lenghts it replaces.
It is a very short zoom range and is more like a lens that lets you make cropping adjustments in the finder, or you can think of it as a 35mm, 30mm, or 28mm lens that lets you pull back to 24mm when you need it.
Like many zooms, I found I was using it at either extreme of the focal range, either treating it like a 35mm that could pull back a bit or like a 24mm that could crop a bit if the view was too wide.I also found myself wishing to go under 24mm and over 35mm!
I used this lens extensively during two trips, as a replacement for a 28mm. Mainly with Kodachrome at good apertures (f7 to f13) on sunny days and the contrast was very fine at all focal lenghts. I tried it once at 3.5 and the contrast was too low. The way I see it, f3.5 is there to help you with focusing. I have rarely used it at 5.6 but I would have noticed it if the lens was not performing adequately. Distortion is very high at 24mm. (Probably also quite high on the 35mm side.) Quite normal for this generation of wide-angle zooms.
You can't ask for more in such a small package. (Canon 24-35 is better corrected for distorsion and performs better at wide apertures but it is much bigger and expensive.)
Also, I compared color balance of the Pentax 24-35 with a SMC Takumar 28mm 3.5 and I could not see a difference. The zoom is probably at his best at 28mm and 30mm but, as I said, contrast is fine at all focal lenghts. To sum it up, it's a perfect lens for slides of sunny landscapes.
But it's wonderfully compact, perhaps the smallest zoom Pentax ever made, and a great travel lens.I agree totally. I wouldn't pay 300$, but 200-250$ is a good price if you know architectural subjects are risky and you can use films that give you the possibility to close the aperture quite a bit.
Andre
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