Yesterday, at Penn Camera in Tysons Corner, Virginia, I had a chance to compare this lens against my Rikenon 28-100/4. The Tamron's specs had intrigued me, since they are close to those of the Pentax SMC 28-135/4 PKA, giving up but a third of a stop at the far end.
The Tamron is almost exactly the same size as my Rikenon; amazingly, it even uses the same 67mm filter. Both are sized rather like the Pentax PKA 35-105/3.5. By contrast, the Pentax requires 77mm, the Tokina ATX 28-135/4, 72mm or 77mm. The Tamron was, however, noticeably heavier than the Rikenon. There's a lot of glass in there. I would estimate that the Rikenon weighs 23 ounces, the Tamron 27. Nonetheless, it's lighter than the Pentax (850 g?) and the Tokina ATX (800 g). I've read that the Tamron vignettes and shows pincushion distortion; with its iffy filter size, that wouldn't surprise me However, another user (on the Olympus list?) suspected that the first user's vignetting may be from using the wrong hood. The lens focuses to 7 feet, at which point you can use a second focusing ring to get as close as 1:4 at any focal length. I find the tradeoff worthwhile to get 1:4. I always regard zoom ranges with suspicion, and my suspicions were justifled. When I set the Tamron's focal length 28mm, the field of view shown in the viewfinder was not as wide as the Rikenon's. I zoomed in on the Rikenon until the view matched the Tamron's; the Rikenon's scale was at 31 or 32mm. So THAT's how Tamron fit so much in such a small package. The price was $230 in PK mount. I told the salesman it wouldn't sell at that price, and he said, "Make me an offer." I told him I'm not really in the market for one. He also said, "I can tell you that the Rikenon is the better lens. Ricoh made so-so cameras but great lenses." By the way, at home I checked prices on this lens. $230 if a very fair price; one listing exceeds $300. [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------------------------------------------------- mail2web - Check your email from the web at http://mail2web.com/ . - 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 .
