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Clubs, bars, and small venues are the places where most concert and live music photographers get their start, the reason being that there are fewer restrictions since the performers are less likely to...
FA* lenses are Pentaxes premier 35mm offerings, sort of equivalent to the
Canon L range. The lens reviewed here is primarily for landscape use, but it's
relatively fast maximum aperture also means it can be used effectively in low
light situations.
Build
The lens itself is well built, although not to the standard of the only other
Pentax FA* lens I own - the
FA* 85mm F1.4.
It comes with a bayonet mounting "petal" style hood, which is effective but on my
example at least, a little flimsy and hard to fit. The lens isn't particularily
large or heavy (it weighs 0.4kg) and takes 67mm filters. A soft case is supplied.
The lens barrel has some depth of field markings (very important on a wide angle
lens) and an IR focusing mark.
The silver finish of the lens looks good when fitted to a silver bodied camera
like the MZ5. It looks a little odd on black camera bodies though.
Optical
This 11 element 9 group design is capable of producing very fine pictures even
wide open, but I personally prefer shooting between F8 and F16 for good depth of
field and the best results. Flare seems to be well controlled - the only time
I've had problems was when shooting Kodak HIE infra-red film, something I often
use this lens for. With colour slide film it's not been a serious concern. Light
falloff in the corners also doesn't seem to be a problem, even at maximum
aperture.
Handling
Pentax's flagship FA* lenses make use of a "de-clutching" mechanism to switch
between manual and auto-focus. This improves the handling as the focus ring
doesn't revolve when in the AF position. When in the manual focus position the
lens provides a better feel than most other AF lenses I've tried . Internal
focusing is used so the front element doesn't revolve - helpful with graduate or
polarising filters. I seem to have problems with the hood nearly all the time -
it's a bit difficult to fit, both reversed for storage or for use.
Compatibility
This lens has worked perfectly on all the Pentax AF bodies I've tried it on
(Z1p, Z50p and MZ5) and the AF performance was very fast on all of them. Saying
that I actually don't use AF much with the lens, preferring to set the
hyper-focal distance manually for the aperture I'm using.
Price
I've no idea what I paid for this lens, but it wasn't cheap! It's been worth
it though, as I like the 24mm focal length and I've used this lens a lot. In
combination with the MZ5 and FA* 85mm F1.4 lenses it often constitutes a part of
my low-light and lightweight kits.
Conclusion
A great lens, capable of very fine results - with the only downside being that
tricky hood.
Editor's Note:
Where to Buy
The SMC-FA
24 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.
Copyright 1998 Steve Graham
The shot at the top of the article was taken from the window of a KLM Boeing
747 between Hong Kong and Holland (somewhere near the Gobi desert I think). A
Pentax MZ5 body was loaded with Provia was used, with a fairly wide aperture set
to give a decent shutter speed and to minimise the effects of the scratches on
the aircrafts window.
How well does this lens perform for those near-far images where you have two or more elements in the picture one very close to the lens almost at the focus limit, another a couple of meters away and maybe a third longer away?
I have observed that lot's of wideangles simply cannot handle this and will only render one of those elements really sharp and with good colours, even though all the elements are well within the range where they ought to be reasonably sharp.
Nikon claims that some of their wideangles uses a method they call close-range-correction to handle this problem. Aparently it's something with moving two or more lens groups around as focus moves, where "normal" lenses only moves one group.
Of course this could very well be marketing babble, I don't know enough about optics to figure that out.
Pentax users who, like myself, are turned off by the price, size, and/or weight of the FA* 24mmf2 might look for the older 24mm f2.8 lens, which appeared in M and A versions. Optical quality is very good, and the lens is light and compact. Though no longer in production, the 24mmf2.8 is fairly easy to find through eBay, keh.com, etc..
I've owned this lens for several years now. 24 mm is a surprisingly useful focal length. I find myself using this lens frequently for general work and industrial applications.
It's a big lens, and its bulk is exacerbated by the slip on lens hood that comes standard with it. 67 mm filters aren't exactly cheap either, so there is some baggage (in several ways) associated with buying this lens.
I have noticed some barrel distortion. Also, some softness, esp. at the wider apertures. No surprise, really. I think Popular Photography rated this lens a few years ago and commented that it was a consistent performer with no great strengths or weaknesses. Who am I to argue with that?
I totally agree, this is an excellent lens. I don't mind the hood - even if it's unusual the way it's mounted. This one was shot at F. 5.6:
http://www.jensbladt.dk/Rhodos-2006/Images/Portraits-3555-web.jpg
