FA Limiteds discontinued?!

<p>Robin: On a DX camera the lens hood in the FA 77mm is too short.<br />2 years ago I had a DA 70 and a bougt a FA 77 before I sold the DA 70. To be honest I liked to use the DA 70 better than to use the FA 77, but I stuck to my plan and sold the DA 70. Then I switched to D700 and sold all my Pentax gear. Now I'm back with Pentax, and I'm happy to own and use a DA 70 again. The FA 77 is bigger and heavier than the little DA 70, and I didn't lie that. I always use the hood that works very well on my DA 70. :)</p>

<p>Let me just say that when I have called the 31mm 'bulky'--and I've done so many times--it is not bulky in an absolute sense, just relative to the other limited lenses (and note, I have the DA70, not the FA77) and also to FA28 and FA35. I certainly wouldn't kick it out of..er..my Domke bag.</p>

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<p>Justin: You are not one to use a lens without its hood I hope? To me a hood is an essential part of the lens, not an optional extra.</p>

 

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<p>I use my hoods when the situations dictate. For many lenses that is all the time (wide angles especially) for others it's not.</p>

<p>I disagree, a hood doesn't need to be used all the time, it's really dependent on where your light source is.</p>

<p>As far as needing one all the time, actually I have something called a hand or a hat. Seriously, I'm not being a smartass (though it sounds like I am), try it.</p>

<p>Your hand/hat/sit pad/pizza box/collapsible reflector, etc will block more light than your hood. I use this method all the time and I'm quite happy with it.</p>

<p>If you don't believe me, go out one day with contrastly lighting that needs a hood. Use the hood, use the hood + a second blind (hand, hat, pizza box, reflector, umbrella, whatever, you get the point) and then use the lens with just the second blind. The blind actually works better than just the hood, and it definitely is better with the hood.</p>

<p>Of course I shoot a lot from a tripod, but with a light camera like the K-7 and a compact lens I can even do this little game while hand holding.</p>

<p>Finally, Pentax lens coatings are good enough to not always need a hood. Of course, one of the reasons I use a hood most of the time...protection! I prefer when possible to NOT use a protective filter, if the hood is on the lens I most likely can avoid adding glass in front of my finely designed optic.</p>

<p>Physical protection: exactly. I use a hood <em>all the time</em> for that reason. And also for contrast, flare reduction etc. Even when flare is not an issue it is interesting how much more "ooph" a shot will have without extra light bouncing in through the corners of the front element. I am sure that some of the negative press certain fast fifties get (by some people) is entirely due to the fact that the user has not sourced an appropriate hood.</p>

<p>Sure a hand or hat might work but I generally need two hands on the camera. (Manual focus, don't you know.) A hood is a lot easier to carry than a spare pizza box, though maybe not as dashing as a hat.</p>

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<p>A Flickr search on "swirly bokeh" will reveal examples, or just look up the Helios 44.</p>

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<p>I'm still confused - what does swirly refer to? I did a search and it came out with many shots and I can't find a common characteristic to them. Looks like a term that is being thrown around indiscriminately. Take these two shots:<br>

<a href="

<a href="

<p>I would imagine the specular highlights in the first shot might be called "swirly" or maybe swirly refers to the blur in the lower half that does make me dizzy, but what is swirly in the second shot? Note that neither is taken with a Russian lens - those shots are from a Vivitar and a Pentax. To compound on this dilemma, I never got any similar result from my Helios 44.</p>

<p>It seems to me that the "swirly" label is applied to Russian lenses as if any shot would have it and it's something bad. I like the blur I get from all my Russian lenses. Not all the time, of course - it depends on the background, and if that's poorly picked the results can be unremarkable, but I never got horrible results. I don't have many shots from Russian lenses online, but here's one - is there anything "swirly" in it?<br>

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/laurentiucristofor/4868348522/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/laurentiucristofor/4868348522/</a></p>

<p>Here are two more where the background was busy and too close, so it doesn't look pleasing, but it doesn't look very different from what I would get from other lenses either.<br>

<a href="../photo/11290934">http://www.photo.net/photo/11290934</a><br>

<a href="../photo/11290936">http://www.photo.net/photo/11290936</a><br>

Actually, I found two more:<br>

<a href="../photo/10783211">http://www.photo.net/photo/10783211</a><br>

<a href="../photo/10783212">http://www.photo.net/photo/10783212</a></p>

 

<p>Laurentiu,<br>

I think the first flickr example shot with the Vivitar 70-150mm illustrates the "swirly" bokeh quite well. But I'm in full agreement with you about the Helios: my shots with that lens during my brief ownership tenure never exhibited "swirly" artifacts. They were rather artful and pleasant. </p>

<p>ME</p>

<p>Yeah, I'd say only the first example is swirly. The others are more floaty, patchy, curly, bashful and Doc.</p>

<p>Thanks again Robin and Justin, it seems to pay off to question the various attributes assigned to lenses IQ because only then we see such beautiful furry pet samples here :-)</p>

<p>Thanks! More pets on my Flickr stream -- I even have a special set for them.</p>

<p>Robin, this was a test shot with the Tamron 90mm macro F2.5 adaptall 55b fitted on the 1.4x Tamron teleconverter on the K10D plus a manual Sunpak ringflash :-)</p><div></div>

<p>one with the Pentax-FA 135mm F2.8 at 1/100 F4 handheld in natural light, focussed on the left eye</p><div></div>

<p>one with the Pentax-FA 50mm macro F2.8 in natural light handheld 1/200 F5.6</p><div></div>

<p>finally the FA 50mm macro again pressed against a thick and quite dirty shopping window at 1/60 F6.7 ISO 200</p><div></div>

<p>I have many more if your interested, with various 50/90/100mm macro and normal 50mm primes and the Tamron 80-200mm F2.8 but would show them in a new thread if you like.</p>

<p>Pets have hijacked the thread! Get out the catnip! :-)</p>

<p>My sweet revenche to compensate for all the "techno babble" in a photo forum ;-)</p>