Gregory, All of the Pentax 50mm f2 lenses are remarkably good, K, M, A or old Takumars. The 50mm f1.4 are not sharper or better, just faster... a bigger minimum aperture. This also makes them easier to focus.
If you are using a tripod and cable release, something should be in sharp focus. Take a look at your pictures. Get a yard stick or tape measure. Lay it on the floor pointed away from you. Put a line on the yard stick in the middle, half way away from you. Focus on the line, as carefully as you can. Get shots wide open and with the lens stopped down at f8 or f22. Now repeat the process, but take that filter off the lens. Now check the pictures. What part of the yard stick is in sharp focus, which numbers? Where you drew the line and focused? Short of the line or beyond it. Check the focus at f8. Is more of the yard stick in sharp focus? Which parts? This should give you some idea where your camera is focusing. Finally, you can save a lens from minor damage with a filter, but you can get poor results everywhere. If you care enough to get a good quality lens, loose the filter. Otherwise, just find some old, dirty Coke bottles to shoot with. Regards, Bob S. [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > I still don't quite have the lens history worked out, so let me ask > opinions about the lens that came with my pawn shop K1000. It's "SMC > PENTAX-M 1:2 50mm", according to the printing on the front. Is this one > of the good ones, or one of the cheap ones? It's SMC, but it's not a > Takumar 50/1.4. > > In shots I've taken with this lens there always seems to be some fuzziness > in the fine details, even when I've used slow film, tripod and cable > release, and tried to ensure the depth of field was larger than any > possible imperfections in focus. So I started to wonder if that's just > what photos looks like when you use a cheap lens, or if I'm still doing > something wrong. I keep a Tiffen Haze 1 filter on it, mainly to protect > the front element. The filter doesn't look purple, so I don't know how > coated it is.
