No experience with the Pentax 50/1.2 here. I have a Nikkor 50mm f/1.2 AI-S (manual focus) lens, however, and find it a piece of cake to focus with both my Nikon F (A screen with split image rangefinder) and with the Olympus E-1 (matte fresnel focusing screen, about the same magnification and brightness focusing screen as a Pentax *ist DS or K10D).
I have worn glasses since I was in third grade and have plenty of issues with eyesight deterioration through floaters, etc, at my advanced age today (lol!), but I can still focus this lens critically. I don't really know what everyone's difficulty is ... fast lenses are easier to focus than slower lenses because the viewfinder is brighter and the focus zone is shallower, you can see the in-out focus transition happen much more clearly. The same lens fitted to the Ricoh GXR-M with an adapter works very well and focuses crisply, both with and without the GXR's implementation of focus peaking ... Used with focus peaking, you have to learn what the focus peaking display is telling you. It's not exactly the same thing as looking at image sharpness on a ground glass field or in an EVF. Manual focusing simply takes some practice. I've been practicing at it for 50+ years now... :-) -- Godfrey godfreydigiorgi.posterous.com -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
