Pentax vs Mamiya 35mm lenses.

[nicholas_rab1]

Hello all,

 

Has anyone compared the quality of these two 6x4.5 lenses? Primary

use would be as a shift lens via Z�rk on a Canon 5D. I am aware of

the Canon TS-E lenses, however I would have twice the amount of shift

available via this system at a very similar cost for one lens, and

signifigantly less for multiple lenses.

 

Thanks for any thoughts.

[nicholas_rab1]

Hmm, guess this crusty old bb code doesn't like unicode. Utf8 to the rescue. That's a Zork adapter, with an umlat over the "o".

[mike_earussi1]

Not familiar with the Mamiya but the Pentax is very sharp and clear. It's only failing is fairly strong lateral color, esp. at the edges. But this is common to all wide angle lenses due to the highly curved front element and can only be cured by aspheric elements or, today, in photoshop.

[peter_weimann1]

I know from somebody who makes adapters that he fitted a Pentax AF 35 mm lens to a Mamiya bajonett to have a perfect lens for digital. The Mamiya lens was not good enough. I for myself use and love the quality of the Pentax lenses, in special the AF AL 35 and the 150-300 ED Zoom.

[peter_langfelder]

FWIW, Danny Gonzales said in his medium format overviews that the Pentax 35mm is better than the Mamiya.

[xato]

There were some adventurous types (read seemingly unlimited funds) at the old Galbraith forums that had experimented with lots of different lens using a full frame Canon and the Zork adapter. They seemed to settle on the Pentax 35mm FA (not the A) for sharpness, evenness of exposure and lack of aberration and distortion. I'm just happy to use it on a regular P645 body and Velvia.