Luminous Landscape Forum

Equipment & Techniques => Cameras, Lenses and Shooting gear => Topic started by: biker on January 02, 2019, 04:39:26 pm

Title: Plastic Prime Lens: What to expect?
Post by: biker on January 02, 2019, 04:39:26 pm

I'm thinking about getting Pentax 35mm f/2.4 AL SMC DA (https://www.imaging-resource.com/lenses/pentax/35mm-f2.4-al-smc-da/review/) as I currently don't have this focal length and the lens IQ (according to many reviews) should be very good. The problem is they review new lenses and this is an affordable (cheap) plastic lens.

Recently I had an opportunity to try a used lens of this type and the image quality was just awful - very soft, lots of aberrations even if I stepped up to f/5.6, totally unacceptable at f/2.4. I also read this warning at lenstip.com (https://www.lenstip.com/299.7-Lens_review-Pentax_smc_DA_35_mm_f_2.4_AL_Coma_and_astigmatism.html) - that the quality of this kind of lenses can decline very fast.

What do you think? With such a lens protected from shocks, vibrations, dust and rain and stored properly - used to take some 5,000 shots yearly - how long will it last until the IQ decline becomes noticeable? Thanks.

Title: Re: Plastic Prime Lens: What to expect?
Post by: Two23 on January 02, 2019, 06:34:48 pm

For $150 I don't see how you can go wrong. 


Kent in SD