Background: Why This Site?

• This site is for those who would like to know the opinions of other Pentaxians with respect to Pentax equipment. When I came back to potography a few years ago, I found that my mind was boggled by the then current discussion of the relative merits of the broad range of 135mm K-mount lenses produced by Pentax over the years. I tried to get it straight in my own mind by cutting and pasting others' comments into a coherent form. I'm still trying to get it straight.
• There are several good sources for Pentax equipment on the Web; I have put links to some of those locations below. Most of these will give you good objective data about Pentax cameras and lenses; some cover equipment currently available at retail outlets, some cover older equipment, and some do both. However, as far as I know, only one site goes beyond a listing of f-stops, number of lens elements, physical dimensions, numerical ratings, etc. That site is the Pentax Discuss discussion group.
• The daily message flow of 50-250 messages among committed Pentax users frequently addresses questions like: "which 50mm lens is better: the 1.2, 1.4, 1.7, or 2.0?" Discussions sometimes include results from structured tests, but most often are unsubstantiated opinions, hearsay, and gossip. As far as I am concerned, this is extremely valuable information! If three trusted sources all say "...pictures with lens #1 have better contrast than with lens #2", then I will be able to use that information. On the other hand, if a chart tells me that lens #3 has 58 lines-per-millimeter definition at the edges while lens #4 has 66 line-per-millimeter definition at the edges, I have no way to interpret and use that information. Others can and do, I just don't think that way. The Pentax Discuss messages are stored in an archive someplace, but unfortunately I found it very difficult to do a quick search through the archives to see what might have been said about a particular lens. The 'old' archives were lost in the switch from one system (supported by Pentax USA) to another (done strictly by volunteers using their own time and resources), and the new archives are reputed to be of limited utility. So, I have tried to organize the lens opinion "data" here.
• I hope you find this useful.

BACK