Yes, Godfrey, I understand your sentiment. Godfrey DiGiorgi wrote: > There are so few choices in this focal length range, particularly for > something usable on 35mm film, if you can get it cheap enough, and > return it, it's probably worth a shot.
That's what I am working about - asking questions from the sellers 'cause still it is not negligible sum of money in question. > I didn't like the Sigma 14mm much. I found it's size and weight, with > that bulbous front element, difficult to work with and the flare > produced by the example I had was pervasive. It seemed to have poor > sharpness, a smeary look particularly off-center, until stopped well > down to f/5.6 or smaller lens openings. This is really strange. You see, I have Sigma 18/3.5 that is about to change hands. The only gripe I have about it is that it is manual focus, like I mentioned on numerous occasions. I find it quite sharp, really almost free of any geometrical distortions and not as prone to flare as it could have been. Indeed, Pentax SMC FAJ 18-35 is more resistant to flare, but Sigma is not all that bad. In fact, I had to deal with three Sigma lenses - AF 28-135 zoom, AF 24/2.8 Superwide Macro II, and 18/3.5 manual focus lens. None of the three were lemons or duds. They each had their quirks but all of them were perfectly decent lenses. > Might have been a bad example. Which supports my other inclination to > not waste time on Sigma lenses at all due to their poor consistency > and build quality. Every Sigma lens I've purchased has required two > or three exchanges to get a "decent" example, and even then were at > best only just acceptable. I have always ended up trading the Sigma > lens back for something else. That's the problem, that living very far from the seller I cannot easily exercise my right to exchange it for better sample. > I'd rather just buy the DA14 or DA12-24 for the DSLR, and then get a > used Voigtländer Bessa-L and a Heliar 15mm f/4.5 Aspheric if you want > to play with ultrawide on film. You can get that combo for around > $500 for the DA14 and $200 for the film camera with lens... I might have to just stay with FAJ 18-35 and/or buy FA 20/2.8 to complement it in certain situations such as low light or smaller footprint. Or I could wait until Tokina AT-X AF 17/3.5 comes along which is said to be almost legendary. And it seems Tokina has less sample variation, but I may be wrong here as well... I am yet very much undecided. But thanks for your input, it is very valuable as usual! Boris -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
