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Pentax DA 12-24mm f/4 ED AL (IF) Lens for Pentax and Samsung Digital SLR's
List Price: $1,200.48
Price: $699.95
You Save: $500.53 |
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Availability: Usually ships in 1 to 2 months
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| Extra-low Dispersion (ED) glass for superior sharpness and color correction |
| Responsive Â?Quick-Shift Focus SystemÂ? allows instant shift from AF to MF |
| The image circle is designed to match the CCD used in PENTAX digital SLRs |
| Comes with a lens hood to minimize flare and ghost images |
| Mount - PENTAX KAF |
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Accessories
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Customers Reviews
2010-02-11
Love that wide angle view!!
* Did a lot of research before buying this lens and it is everything I was hoping for. My favorite lenses in the 35mm film range were 24 and 28mm. This lens covers that range with some left on both sides with very little distortion, and the edge to edge sharpness I would expect from a fixed focus. So far I have not noticed any major "purple fringing" problems that others have in high contrast areas. Since I do all my processing in PS, I am prepared to deal with those as they pop up. I manual focus only so did not test the auto focus aspect of the lens. I personally do not mind the size of the lens hood as long as it does the job it was intended to do. Someday I will buy that 15mm LTD, but I like the ability to zoom instead of switching lenses out the the dust, dirt and sand I find myself shooting in many times. Maybe Pentax will come out with a weather sealed version of this great lens???
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2010-01-21
great construction, fair price, quality photos!
The sweet spot of the lens is at the wide end of the zoom range where the center quality is outstanding and the borders and even the extreme corners reach very good levels and that's already straight from f/4. The center quality decreases slightly towards the long end of the zoom range. At 24mm it is advisable to stop down a little to lift the contrast level and to get a little extra kick in terms of resolution. Typical for most ultra-wide zooms the vignetting is quite pronounced at 12mm @ f/4 but the problem is already mostly gone by f/5.6. The level of distortions is slightly better than average. The primary weakness of the Pentax lens are chromatic aberrations (color shadows at the image borders) which are fairly hefty at 12mm and a little less so also at 18mm. This isn't a principal show-stopper you are willing to invest a little time to reduce or even eliminate the problem during post processing (most RAW converters can help you here) but it can be visible at times if you prefer untouched JPEGs straight from the camera. It seems as if the lens is less prone to flare compared to its Tokina variant - surely an effect of the SMC coating. The build quality of the lens is very fine and regarding the moderate price tag you're getting lots of bangs for your bucks here.
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2009-12-23
I love it, yet it irritates me
Instead of duplicating other folks' reviews, I'll briefly add a few points that are minor or major depending on your view.
First, my Pentax 12-24 mm lens (attached to a Pentax K100D) takes nice pictures when it lets me. With this lens, the K100D hunts for autofocus, and often gives up. I've become so exasperated that I have 3 pieces of masking tape attached on the focusing ring of the lens so that I'm shooting manual focus fixed at infinity. It works for most sightseeing shots outdoors. When it doesn't, I need to loosen the masking tape, and suffer the skittish autofocus or focus manually. The autofocus problem can happen in broad daylight, with only a UV protective filter attached to the lens. My other lenses are not this bad.
Second, the big hood makes it devilishly difficult to rotate my polarizing filter. So much so that I don't use the hood. But I get good shots anyway.
Third, although I also have the Pentax 10-17 mm diagonal fisheye zoom (wonderful lens), the Pentax 12-24 mm gives me great panorama shots, too. I use PTGUI to stitch multiple photos, and PANO2VR to create QuickTime and Flash movies.
Fourth, the lens is a bit slow, and the filter diameter is a bit wide. Meaning you need good light, and if you want a polarizing filter, the price will be steep.
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2009-09-23
May be a perfect lens - in theory
I have been a dedicated Pentax shooter for over 30 years, using Pentax equipment for all my 35mm, 645 and 6X7 format applications. I loved the ergonomics, the incredible reliability and the uncomparable craftsmanship and optical quality of Pentax professional products - up until now.
I've purchased this lens brand new from Amazon and owned it for a year before giving up on it after the third and final replacement I got from Pentax due to horrible distortions, lack of sharpness and/or purple fringing I experienced with all three samples. I am still spending hours in Photoshop trying to salvage many compositionally great images I took with all three samples of this lens I owned. Some images can not be saved due to significant lack of sharpness (this was the third sample I received - horrible autofocus errors in addition to fringing and distortion), but most are salvageable, since the distortions I experienced were mostly of a simple linear type, and are correctable in Photoshop, although the second sample of this lens had an incredibly complex wavy distortion patterns, which can not be corrected by regular means or by DxO software. The purple fringing is another matter entirely, taking hours of painstaking labor to remove and was prominently present in all three samples I had.
This experience forced me to switch to Nikon for my wide-angle needs (I purchased the horribly overpriced but optically unsurpassed 14-24mm lens for the D700 I was also obliged to purchase to use this lens), but I am using the now discontinued but simply incredible Pentax 645 and 6X7 lenses on the D700 from 35mm focal length and up via a mount adapter. I was forced to sell off my Pentax bodies, in part because their other current lenses also suffer from total lack of quality control.
The bottom line - if you need a good quality wide angle lens for your Pentax, DO NOT BUY THIS LENS! Consider a Tokina 11-16mm lens instead, which beats Pentax's and every other manufacturer's 12-24mm offerings hands down. It is very sad to see such a great optical designer and manufacturer as Pentax go down the drain!
I am giving this lens two stars instead of one, because the SMC Pentax coating performed flawlessly - no ghosting, even when shooting directly into the Sun (do not try this with Nikon 14-24mm!) and because the physical build of this lens is great - solid, light and ergonomically superior.
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2009-06-01
Pentax Wide Angle Zoom
This is a great lens and was exactly what I was looking for to shoot large objects in tight spaces
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Product Details
Batteries Included: 0
Binding: Electronics
Brand: Pentax
Color:
EAN: 0027075114173
Floppy Disk Drive Description:
Has Red Eye Reduction:
Is Autographed: 0
Is Memorabilia: 0
Label: Pentax
Legal Disclaimer: Warranty does not cover misuse of product.
Manufacturer: Pentax
Model: 21577
Publisher: Pentax
Release Date:
Special Features:
Studio: Pentax
System Memory Size: |
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