> 1. flare- how do i control it-it flares worse than smc lens No surprises here - it's not a Pentax SMC lens, and Vivitar's VMC is not as good as Pentax. (Hypothesis: Part of the popularity of a lot of the 3rd-party "cult classic" lenses may be due to the fact that many of their biggest fans also use Nikon, Canon, Minolta, Olympus, and Konica, etc., lenses, so that the difference in flare resistance between the 3rd-party lenses and the name-branded lenses may be smaller than the difference between the 3rd-party lenses and SMC Pentax lenses.)
In Frances Schultz's review of this lens in a 1998 issue of Shutterbug magazine, she says: "Despite all the glass, and 18 air glass surfaces, flare is surprisingly low for such a complex lens of this age." Well, it's worth remembering that Schultz shoots with Nikon gear, so her comparison is likely being made against Nikon glass (which is not SMC Pentax glass, right?). On the other hand, in the Modern Photo review of this lens, flare was mentioned as a problem: "Without [the hood], reflections from the inside of the front-element circumference produce pronounced lens flare. The hood eliminates this, so you must think of it as an integral part of the lens for nearly all your shooting." I think the truth lies somewhere between these two reviews. I have noticed flare occasionally with this lens (and, due to the benefits of SMC on my Pentax lenses, I sometimes have gotten pretty "casual" about worrying about hoods and flare, so part of this may be the result my own laziness). However, when I've remembered to pop the hood on the lens, it does not seem to be bothered by flare all that much (depending upon the actual shooting conditions at the time, of course). The lens's own hood (not a built-in hood, but a removable one) is, naturally, not fully useful at many focal lengths. It's not a "tuliped" hood, and, as with most zoom lens hoods, a hood that might be useful at the wide end of the zoom range becomes much less useful at the longer end of the range. Sometimes, you can provide a "shadow" on the front of the lens using your hand or some other blind - however, you do have to be careful to keep the blind out of the image field (unless you plan on cropping it substantially). Fred
