> IIRC the 40 is a "tessar" design and therefore not at its best > until stopped down a ways. I bet that if the 40 is shot around > f8 or 11 it will give acceptably sharp pictures. My guess is > that some people spent too much on it and then were disapointed > with its performance at 2.8, hence the bad rep.
Interesting. Actually, though, my testing of four M 40/2.8's and a number of other normal lenses showed that the 40/2.8 probably varied less through its range of apertures than just about any other normal lens. (See http://www.cetussoft.com/pentax/resolutn.htm) Furthermore, the high-contrast resolution (which is only one aspect of lens performance, I know) of the 40/2.8 is quite comparable to that of all the other normal lenses it was tested against aperture for aperture, from f/2.8 and smaller. And probably the most striking thing I noticed about the four 40/2.8's was the similarity in results from lens to lens - there was a much smaller sample-to-sample variance than in multiple copies of the other lenses tested (which might be due to the simplicity of its optical design). Fred - This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org .
