While it is not mentioned much in magazine reviews "plasticity" is as important a lens quality as sharpness, and contrast (bokah is related to plasticity, but only looks at it in a very limited area). It is not easily quantifiable, so mostly ignored by the press. One of the things nice in the old days was you could really see your photos when the slide was projected on a 50x50 inch screen in a darkened room. Not like looking at a 4x6 snapshot, or an image on the computer screen. Plasticity may still have been essentially undefinable (smoothness, maybe?), but it was very noticeable on that big screen.
Peter Alling wrote:
M*300 F 4.0, M 100 f2.8 not legendary very special. The M 85 and M 120 lenses
are excoriated as being not as sharp as earlier and later equivalents but
sharpness is not the most important characteristic of a portrait lens. The 85mm is
in fact a great portrait lens.
At 09:06 AM 10/7/03 -0500, you wrote:
On Tue, 7 Oct 2003, Mark Roberts wrote:
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > > KEH.com is knee-deep in M lenses. > > But they can't keep later lenses in stock. This should tell us > something.
OK, here's a question for those of you with broader experience of pentax lenses (I've used K, M, and A*)--are the "M" lenses the low-water mark of pentax optics? I would think either that or sales volume accounts for their prevalence on the used market.
In almost every case the "M" lens that replaced a "K" lens is not as well thought of. Often, the "A" lens that replaced the "M" lens is better thought of. My guess is that in miniaturizing the "M" series pentax did make compromises optically and only gained it back with better manufacturing technology and design tweaks in the later lenses. I can't offhand think of any of the pentax legends that are "M" lenses only, except perhaps the 20mm f/4. Most of the legendary lenses are either "K" lenses that date from the screw-mount era (85 f/1.8, 105 f/2.5), new "K" lenses (18 f/3.5, 30 f/2.8, 200 f/2.5), or newer "A*" and "FA limited" top-of-the-line glass.
DJE
I drink to make other people interesting. -- George Jean Nathan
-- graywolf http://graywolfphoto.com
"You might as well accept people as they are, you are not going to be able to change them anyway."
