Pentax DA 40mm f 2.8 Limited Lens review

Here is my review of the new Pentax DA 40mm f 2.8 Limited lens.

This is a great lens for AF portrait photography and I would put the optical quality in line with a 50mm fixed lens (such as the old school K 50/1.4 that I already have). The lens is sharp and (not surprisingly) outperforms the 18-55mm kit lens at some ends of the spectrum.

Contents - The lens comes with a leather pouch, screw-in metal lens hood (I leave this on all the time for protection), and a quarter-sized screw in metal lens cap.


Build - Rock solid build all-around, even the cap and hood. It's built like a tank. This thing is all metal and SOLID. It feels like a nicely built manual focus lens, and the manual focusing ring is nicely damped.


I'll show the shots taken with the DA 40mm Close first. Fist shot is comparison of close-focused, wide open. CLICK ON EACH PHOTO for high resolution view. NO, I WILL NOT POST 20MB RAW FILES. THIS IS A FREE SERVICE, AND I AM NOT ALLOTTED THE SPACE TO POST SILLY HUGE FILES. GO TO DPREVIEW.COM IF YOU WANT HIGH RES PHOTOS OF EYE CHARTS.

SHOTS CLOSE FOCUSED, WIDE OPEN
Here is the 40mm lens at 2.8 [L Cf 28]


Blow-up of highlighted area [LCf28Blow]. The tree in the background is smoothly blurred.



Here is the same shot taken with the kit lens wide open [Zoom Cf45]



Here is the highlighted are a blown up [Zoom Cf45 Blow]
Notice there is a bit of double vision on the branches in the back. Not so good bokeh close focues on the zoom lens.

SHOTS AT INFINITY, WIDE OPEN

Here is the 40mm lens at 2.8, infinity [L inf 28]

Here is the foreground corner enlarged [L inf 28 Blow]
Note the smooth blurred leaves in the foreground.


Here is the kit zoom lens at infinity wide open (f 4.5) [zoom inf 45]

Here is the enlarged area [zoom inf 45 blow]. A bit of double vision in the foreground on the leaves and branches.

ZOOM LENS AT INFINITY, F 5.6
I put this one in here to show how good the Limited lens really is, even wide open.

Kit zoom lens at infinity, 5.6 [zoom inf 5.6]

Here is the detail area [zoom inf 56 Blow]. Notice that the tree in the background is still not as sharp as the Limited lens, EVEN WHEN THE LIMITED LENS IS WIDE OPEN, TWO FULL STOPS FASTER.


STOPPEED DOWN COMPARISON.

Here are both lenses at infinity, f 22. No discernable difference...



If you can tell which lens is which, let me know.

CONCLUSION. The L lens blows away the kit lens anywhere faster than f 5.6 in sharpness and bokeh. If you are looking for a 60mm (35mm equivalent) lens for shooting portraits, maybe this lens is worth it. If are taking pictures where you can get your portrait subject to sit still, the old manual 50mm lenses are still a great deal (and a bit faster).

If you are looking for an 'all around' lens, the kit lens is still a great performer for the price (about $100 if bought with the camera). If you are looking for a wide angle fixed lens to use as a walkaround lens, the 40mm Limited is not it. I would wait for the upcoming DA 21 mm f3.2Limited lens for this one.

Kids w/ cameras - a revelation.

I took my son to the Carlsbad Flower fields a few weeks ago to take some photos. I brought along my Pentax DL Digital SLR as well as my Powershot A70 point n shoot camera for my son to use. The weather was overcast, but this was my day off and rain was the forecast for the upcoming weekend. We decided to pay the entance fee and press on with our little photo excursion.

As luck would have it, I forgot to put the SD card back in my Pentax and I had no 'film' to shoot with. All we had was the point n shoot to share between us. Since this was supposed to be a fun outing for my son, I sucked it up and let him take (almost!) all of the photos for the day using the point n shoot.

Wow. I'm actually glad everything turned out this way. Until now, I never fully realized what fascinates the mind of a first-grade lad. He likes legos, trucks, and machines, but I gained a new appreciation for how his mind works after this 'photo essay'. Some of the pictures he took actually had flowwers in them!! Below is a 40,000 word sampling of our outing. Judge for yourself...

Trucks passing by the Costco across the street.

Sprinkler valve manifold.

Mud-caked tailpipe on a pickup truck.

My son went into the porta potty and I offered to 'hold the camera' for him. I consider this the best shot I made during the two minutes I had the camera, but radically different from anything that interested my son.


This is all made possible by digital camera technology! Years ago my first camera was a kodak 110 camera with cartridge film. The learning curve was steep- I did not learn about exposure and (disposable cube) flash use until weeks after burning a few rolls. Today my son can fire away on the digital cam and we just delete the blurred or crummy pix. I keep the remainder of my son's pics in a separate folder on my computer and print out his favorite fotos on snapfish.

For parents, I highly recommend doing this with your kids for three reasons: (1) It's a great way to understand how your child sees the world. (2) You can graphically catalog the development of his mind through his photos. (3) MOST IMPORTANT - I made the startling discovery that a small camera in the hands of an active child acts as a boat anchor- I can easily keep pace with him and do not have to sprint to chase him around!!