Thanks to everyone who answered my enquiry about using "other
makes" with Pentax lenses. I do appreciate all the help and advice.
Further to this matter of focussing, there is something which has
puzzled me a lot for some time now. I note on this (and other)
discussion lists that there is often a pre-occupation with wide
aperture lenses. To-day f1.8 and f1.4 is commonplace. When I
started out about 40 years ago f2.8 was considered a pretty good
lens speed and f1.4 was not even dreamed about from what I
remember. So I have over the years been very much the sort of
person who adhered to the "f8 and be there" idea. Even though I
now have f1.8 lenses on my Spotmatics and (golly) even an f1.4 on
the F3 I very seldom ever used them until fairly recently and then the
results were pretty disappointing.
How do people manage to shoot at f1.8 or even wider and still get
their image sharp? For goodness sake, even my 105mm f2.8 has a
depth of field at f2.8 and close up (about 2 metres) of less than 12
cm! With my 55mm lenses at f1.8 if I don't focus exactly spot-on
perfect dead accurate the results are not acceptable. I have taken
endless head-and-shoulders portraits by available light at f1.8 or f2
to find to my chagrin that the tip of the nose is sharp but the eyes
JUST out of focus, or else the ears look great but pity about the rest
of the face.
What is wrong here? How do the available light men (and women)
get their overall sharpness at big f-stops? Excepting for the fact that
large aperture lenses make lovely bright images to focus by (I like)
what good is their large aperture for actual shooting?
Conrad F. Samuels
Kirstenhof SA
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