Very funny thing is there have been a lot of great photos made with all those lenses. An interesting thing about this is I never heard Canon lenses praised for their pictorial qualities. While Pentax lenses generally have been. Yes the L lenses are high tech, super sharp, but to me they always seemed kind of flat. However, in the hands of an expert who watches his lighting carefully, you can make a flat lens produce 3d looking photos, and someone who does not watch his lighting can make flat photos with a great lens that has those artsy qualities. Learning excellent lighting in color is harder than in black and white because it is more subtle.
Pentax has made few lenses that were not professionally acceptable, and most of those were really 3rd party lenses. None of the ones you have are in that catagoy, although that does not mean you do not have a bad sample or two there, and should produce fine pictures. The K24/3.5 in particular has never been cited for poor pictorial qualities.
I think that what is happening here is that he simply is more finicky in editing his portfolio.
graywolf http://www.graywolfphoto.com "Idiot Proof" <==> "Expert Proof" -----------------------------------
Boris Liberman wrote:
Hi!
Recently I met a person who uses EOS 20D and couple of L lenses - 17-40/4 and 70-200/4 both being L lenses.
We looked at each other's photos and I was very impressed with the way the L lenses produce very plastic, very 3D images. He on the other hand pointed out that few of my works were very good while actually spoiled by rather poor optics that I have.
Notably, of course, he was "attacking" my FA 28-70/4 and F 70-210 zooms. Indeed, a cheap $100 zoom cannot really compete with $750 monsters from Canon :).
However, this made me concerned, in a sense that it could be some other of my lenses are not on par with modern quality.
This guy also mentioned that to him I appeared as if having outgrown most of my gear, so that now my lenses were bottleneck in my further deveplopment as a photog...
Although flattered by this comment, I am very unamused.
I went to pbase.com and looked up some considerable number of shots made by Pentax gear. I saw rather bad shots made with Limited lenses as well as some excellent shots too.
I do admit that I am after plasticity of my lenses. It is what makes the picture look really good. So here are the lenses I find questionable:
K 24/2.8 M 35/2.8 Takumar Bayonet 135/2.5 Of course two zooms: 28-70/4 and 70-210/4-5.6
I am unsure about that Sigma 18/3.5 that I recently bought.
The lenses I am sure are excellent are:
FA 50/1.7 M 50/1.4 F 85/2.8 soft (truly unique) Tamron 90/2.5 SP (thanks Joe Wilensky!)
I don't seem to have anything left unmentioned.
I have some particular questions to add to this little rant:
1. Is there any of the "questionable" lenses above that are actually very good? 2. What things I should be aware of to improve plasticity of my images? 3. If I indeed have to replace all/some of those "questionable" lenses, what would you recommend?
My plan was to stop my enablement and do some extensive shooting. It seems it is falling apart somehow...
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