Wednesday, April 1, 2015

Pentax M 50mm f4 Macro Lens Review

You can read about the Pentax 50mm f4 Macro lens on the "Pentax Lens Forum" , and It's well worth the read.
This lens is over 35 years old, and In my view, it's a little ripper.


Pentax 50mm f4 macro lens


It's a very simple lens in that it's based on the Zeiss "Tessar" optical design. Four elements in three groups. The Tessar design lends itself to a sharp and distortion free lens, but this comes at the expense of speed.
You won't find a really "fast" Tessar lens from any company, Zeiss made some at f2.8 actually millions of them. I don't call that fast, I'd like to try one though, think I will.





  • Focal Length:    50mm
  • Aperture range: f4 thru f32  5 blades  half stops up to f22
  • Filter Threads:   49mm
  • Weight:             169gm 
  • Close Focus:     23.4cm
  • Focus throw:     350 degrees approx


The Lens assembly is set so far back from the front you don't need a lens hood with this little fella either.


Pentax 50mm f4 macro lens close focused


You might say "A bit slow at f4" but who cares, once you step outside into the sun you start at f4, or f8
Being wide open at f4 also allows for some nice "bokeh" as you can focus very close to your subject and have an "iris blade free" background blur.


Pentax 50mm f4 macro lens Bokeh

The only down side I have found is at the far end of things, as you approach infinity the focus travel gets rather small, so nailing focus at that end takes a bit more patience.

As the saying goes "a picture is worth a thousand words" so some pictures.
 
All taken with Fujifilm XT-1 Camera




One of those weeds at f4 and 
100% crop at the right.








Nice flower and
100% crop











As you can see very sharp, and as I believe also free from distortion. No only a great close up lens, but also great as a walk around lens as well.



The following two are straight from the camera, not cropped, just compressed a bit.
The bike is a colour shot
Probably f8.Focused on the motor.


Most likely f8 

Flinders St Station, Melbourne, Victoria




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