SMC Pentax-FA 77mm f/1.8 Limited Lens

SMC Pentax-FA 77mm f/1.8 Limited Lens: Handling

The lens is compact and fits firmly and smoothly onto the camera body. The quality of construction is evident from the start and engenders confidence. The pull out lens hood is smooth in operation and has no tendency to move out of true, unlike some cheaper lenses.

The manual focusing is also smooth, albeit with a very different feel to the traditional silky smoothness of older conventional lenses. The technology has clearly changed, but is still totally satisfactory.

Focusing on the K-5 is fast and positive and no adjustment to the point of focus is needed on this sample at least. If required, lens AF can be fine tuned in the K-5 and some other recent Pentax DSLRs. Up to 20 lenses can be fine tuned and retained in the camera's memory.

77mm is a good focal length for a short telephoto and is suitable for selective landscapes, architecture, some close sports, portraits in particular and even wildlife to a limited extent. For many, portraiture will be an obvious choice and an area of particular interest. The lens already has a formidable reputation on film for this application, so we shall see if this holds up on a DSLR.

Add your message