Konica 50mm/2.0 or Pentax 43mm 1.9?

[david.elliott]

It is listed at $1999.

f/3.4 - 4.

 

[raid]

It is listed at $1999.

f/3.4 - 4.

This would be out of my league. What are the max apertures?

Is it the same max aperture for such lenses?

Leica has the Tri-Elmar or something. One lens for all cases. Could be boring after a while.

 

[david.elliott]

f/3.4 is the max aperture at 21mm. f/4 is the max aperture at 35mm.

So, pretty slow 🙂

 

[raid]

f/3.4 is the max aperture at 21mm. f/4 is the max aperture at 35mm.

So, pretty slow 🙂

I would not mind a less expensive "CV like" 21-50-90 travel lens, with the 50mm lens being the only fast lens @ 2.0.

 

[johannielscom]

congrats on the buy Raid! I love the B&W shot! And the crop even more, actually!

I'll shoot the Hexanon 50mm f2.0 on Fomapan 200 tomorrow and might upload a shot on RFF once developed, so you can have some comparison.

I'm sure you'll enjoy the Pentax, it looks great! Love to see more shots from it!

 

[david.elliott]

Love those shots Mabelsound, especially the last one.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm a profiling genius and I'd say it's mainly musical music on the cassette player, and a single female lives there, judging from the dog-toiletbrush holder and the shower curtain.

Well? Well? How close was I?

@David: Like to see those shots in a few weeks, wondering about contrast in color shots!

Just following up, as promised! Black and white photos only this time. I'm waiting on some slide film before I do color. It should arrive from freestyle at some point this week.

The lens arrived. Shipping was incredibly fast. Matsuiya store is the best - highly recommended!

The lens looks to be in awesome condition. The only fault I see is some very minor dust inside - wont have any effect on image quality. It is barely visible even with my powerful flashlight. There is some slight wear on the lens cap, about two millimeters worth, but that doesnt bother me at all.

Initial impressions - build quality is fantastic and the viewfinder is great! I can see the framelines and a bit more with ease, even with my glasses.

Note - in a few weeks, I hope to post a full lens review complete with color and black and white photos, as well as photos of the lens (and viewfinder) itself.

-----

Here are a few photos from my test roll with the lens.

http://strongmace.com/Photography/Pentax43LMountTestRoll/index.html

This was my first time using legacy pro 100. I developed it in diafine at EI 200.

I have to say, on the whole, I am not too pleased with the results, as to the -film- alone. Much of the roll was overexposed, so I may just shoot a test roll at various ISOs to see where the sweet spot is when developing with diafine. As it stands now though, I greatly prefer arista premium 400 (just cant shoot it wide open in daylight). I think I may just shoot the Legacy Pro 100 at either 400 or 640, which I think would lead to better exposures.
Good thing I did some bracketing, no? 🙂

Setting the film issues aside though, I am REALLY happy with the lens. I love the look of the bokeh. The lens is quite sharp, at least for me, wide open. I have no complaints about sharpeness at f/1.9 - or at any other aperture for that matter. Note - photos above were not sharpened other than standard lightroom output sharpening. No sharpening in the actual development tab. No sharpening in vuescan either.

The handles beautifully. I didnt even bother with the focusing tab though. I just used the ridged ring instead. Focus is very smooth. Aperture click stops take a bit more effort than on my two CV lenses, but it is still very snappy and easy.

I'm quite pleased with the few photos in that link above.

----

Just a few notes about the shooting conditions in the above link. As raid noted, when I pmed him the link, the lighting was really challenging.

I went out around 5:30pm that day, so the sun was still up pretty high.

I was trying to make the lens flare in the tree/sun shots. It did in fact flare without the hood, but not with the hood. The flares (hood not extended) only resulted when I had the sun at the edge of the frame, not in the center. With the hood extended, I couldn't get the lens to flare at all.

I had fun working with the challenging lighting. It was awfully bright and contrasty out. Tried to push the lens really hard, and the results were great imo.

The two bokeh photos were set to minimum focus distance, wide open, just to get an idea of how it looks in general. The first one is of a house with a few trees, with the house about 200 feet from me I would think. The second one is just of trees.

I think thats just about everything I wanted to say for now. Hope I didnt forget anything.

If anybody has questions, feel free to ask. 😀

Here is the photo link again, in case you missed it above: http://strongmace.com/Photography/Pentax43LMountTestRoll/index.html

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

FYI, raid, I think that second photo, the color one, is one of your best pictures ever. I think you tend to favor more lively/adorable pictures of your kids, but that one is contemplative, and really evokes a different mood. It's the kind of picture that, someday, when your daughter is grown and married, will be her husband's favorite childhood image of her, if that isn't too weird a thing to say. It's like you can see the adult in her, waiting to emerge.

Anyway, nice work, and I agree, sharpness is fine with this lens, but it's really all about the rendering.

 

[raid]

FYI, raid, I think that second photo, the color one, is one of your best pictures ever. I think you tend to favor more lively/adorable pictures of your kids, but that one is contemplative, and really evokes a different mood. It's the kind of picture that, someday, when your daughter is grown and married, will be her husband's favorite childhood image of her, if that isn't too weird a thing to say. It's like you can see the adult in her, waiting to emerge.

Anyway, nice work, and I agree, sharpness is fine with this lens, but it's really all about the rendering.

I think I know what you mean. I also looked into Dana's eyes and I saw a "person" emerging. The eyes always tell the story, as you know.

I bought the 43mm lens for its way of rendering and not for its sharpness of lack of it.

Thanks for the kind words.

 

[raid]

Just following up, as promised! Black and white photos only this time. I'm waiting on some slide film before I do color. It should arrive from freestyle at some point this week.

The lens arrived. Shipping was incredibly fast. Matsuiya store is the best - highly recommended!

The lens looks to be in awesome condition. The only fault I see is some very minor dust inside - wont have any effect on image quality. It is barely visible even with my powerful flashlight. There is some slight wear on the lens cap, about two millimeters worth, but that doesnt bother me at all.

Hello David,
As we have discussed via pm, you picked challenging light situations for your first usage of the lens.

I also got lucky with my buy. The 43mm lens looks like new, and the 43/50 finder is excellent too.

I got the lens in Black while you chose chrome/silver finish. I think that both look great.

I played with the lens a little by mounting it on a black M6 via a LTM adapter. The crazy thing is that the frame in the M6 finder [with that LTM adapter] seems to be exactly the 43mm lines in the Pentax finder. I kept on making sure that I was not confusing the 43mm lines with the 50mm lines in the finder.

In the end, I conclude that I don't need the finder when using the M6 with the lens. I will stilluse the finder with one roll offilm just to be sure of things.



I have to thank you for encouraging me to get such a lens.

 

[ampguy]

They're both good, the 43 LTM is large (as large or larger than the Hex 50), but looks sharper than the M-Hex 50 to me (I've owned a few of the 50s) and has less CA.

Hard to compare though, they're different fl's.

 

[david.elliott]

Hello David,
As we have discussed via pm, you picked challenging light situations for your first usage of the lens.

I also got lucky with my buy. The 43mm lens looks like new, and the 43/50 finder is excellent too.

I got the lens in Black while you chose chrome/silver finish. I think that both look great.

I played with the lens a little by mounting it on a black M6 via a LTM adapter. The crazy thing is that the frame in the M6 finder [with that LTM adapter] seems to be exactly the 43mm lines in the Pentax finder. I kept on making sure that I was not confusing the 43mm lines with the 50mm lines in the finder.

In the end, I conclude that I don't need the finder when using the M6 with the lens. I will stilluse the finder with one roll offilm just to be sure of things.



I have to thank you for encouraging me to get such a lens.

My pleasure. 🙂