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The FA* lens series is the top series from Pentax. I purchased my FA* 300mm
F4.5 lens in February 1998. I have taken it whale watching off the California
coast, to several state and national parks local to the San Fransisco Bay area,
and on an extended sea kayaking trip in Kenai Fjords National Park in Alaska.
Build
The lens has a solid, well-made metal feel to it. The barrel surface is coated
with a silver finish that seems to be fairly durable (mine has no scratches or
nicks on it so far, but I haven't dropped it yet, either). The focus barrel locks
in place under autofocus operation. Pulling it towards the camera body engages a
clutch in the lens and enables manual focus operation. The clutching operation
feels solid and secure, and the focusing feel is solid, if a little light. The
lens hood (included) snaps into place via a set of cool spring-loaded
rollers.
Optical
The lens uses 9 elements in 7 groups and includes ED glass and an internal
focusing design. The minimum focusing distance of 2 meters is close enough to use
to photograph some larger flowers. It uses 67mm filters (the same size as the
24mm and 85mm FA* lenses). The front element is deeply recessed inside the
barrel. I have not seen any flare from photos taken with this lens with the hood
in place.
Handling
I like it! I believe that this lens is a bit lighter and shorter than at least
some comparable offerings from Canon, Nikon, Minolta, etc. The one feature that
it does not have is a tripod collar. I typically use it for wildlife and nature
photography and would use a collar a lot. I have a Bogen 3420 long lens support
that is a passable substitute, but putting it on is a bit of a hassle.
Fortunately, the quick-release on the 3420 is compatible with the quick release
on Bogen's affordable ball-head, the 3262QR.
[Editors Note: Some users look for the older SMC-F lens used, as it has a
tripod mount fitted]
Price
I bought mine in February 1998 for $800 from B&H. Compared to similar
lenses from other makers, this seems to be a pretty good price.
My Sample
My lens produces very sharp images. It is significantly sharper than the Sigma
APO Macro 70-300 zoom that I have used previously. The shot on this page is an
image of a sleeping Elephant Seal that was taken at Ano Nuevo state park on the
California coast between Santa Cruz and Half Moon Bay. It is not a particularly
good picture, but it demonstrates the real-world properties of the lens quite
well. The image was taken hand-held wide open (F4.5 at 1/500th sec) on Fuji
Sensia 100 film. The original PhotoCD image is on the left (the only image
processing was color balancing). I autofocused on the sleeping seal, recomposed,
and took the shot. On the right is the zoomed-up seal nose. This section
corresponds to about a 2mm by 3mm rectangle near the edge of the original slide.
At 1536x1024, the image resolution is about 43 pixels per mm. The seal
whiskers are about 4 pixels apart. This is equivalent to about 10 line pairs per
mm. The whiskers extremely well seperated by the lens. Again, the image was taken
wide-open (at F4.5) and the whiskers are significantly off-center in the
image.
On a less positive note, I recently discovered that my sample doesn't quite
focus all the way to infinity. My ZX-5 autofocus hits the stop and makes an odd
noise when I try to focus on, say, a mountain 10 miles away. I get the same
results when I mount the lens on my P-3n body and try to manually focus with the
split-image viewfinder. I will most likely be sending this lens back to Pentax
for adjustment some time soon.
Conclusion
This lens is compact, sharp and has excellent build quality. I believe that
the price is pretty good as compared to similar offerings from the other major
brands. The lack of a tripod collar is a (minor) inconvenience. My sample's
inability to focus all the way to infinity is a bit more of a concern.
Editor's Note:
Where to Buy
The SMC
FA 300 is stocked by Adorama, a retailer that pays photo.net a referral fee
for each customer, which helps keep this site in operation. For additional
retailer information, see
our recommended
retailers page and
the user recommendations section.
For those who consider their existing collection
of filters when selecting lenses, the FA*28-70
f2.8 also utilizes 67mm filters. Among older
lenses, the A*85 and F*300 do, too, along with
the SMC-A 35-105 f3.5.
I recently purchased (used) the older F* version of this lens, which is often sought after because, unlike the FA*, it comes with a tripod collar (it also has a very nice built-in lenshood). For those trying to decide between the two there are some other things that should be taken into consideration (although I believe both models use the same optical formula).
The F* has two things which might be problematic for some users: 1.) the aperture ring is tiny and hard to reach if the tripod collar is attached (a minor problem, & not really a problem at all with the PZ-1p - except when you want to use depth-of-field preview), 2.) when the manual focus ring is engaged, the autofocus mechanism is not disengaged. This means that in order to focus manually you have to switch not only the lens off autofocus but the camera body off autofocus as well. You probably won't enjoy this if you expect to be switching to and from manual focus often.
While the FA* lacks the tripod collar and the built-in hood, it does have a true autofocus disengage clutch mechanism. And, at least with a PZ-1p, I don't think the lens is so heavy that the lack of a tripod collar is that big of a deal.
For me, the F* is the better choice (having the ability to turn the camera from a horizontal to a vertical position without adjusting the tripod is much more useful to me than the ability switch quickly from auto to manual focus and back again). Your needs may differ, of course.
