Excellent lens with minor drawbacks.
First things first, this is a premium lens, so if you are looking for a "nifty fifty" go buy the 50mm f1.8 or a vintage lens. If you are looking for an excellent APS-C portrait lens with all of the bells and whistles, this is the lens to get. This lens does fantastic work on pretty much everything you point it at though, so dont think this only has to be for portraits. The cons of the lens are pretty simple:
- AF is relatively slow and not the fastest at all. One of the slower lenses, but the focus throw isnt bad. AF is however practically silent and manual focusing is a joy. Its also somtimes necesarry with such a low depth of field, so slow focusing is not exactly a problem.
-Premium price tag for basically a fancy 55mm prime, but its absolutely worth it. (Will explain)
-Background blurr can be busy sometimes, but its not particularly ugly
Neutral aspects of the lens:
-A little glowy and soft wide open, but its still acceptably sharp and sharper than pretty much everything else that has an f1.4 aperature. Stopped down just a little bit the lens progressively gets sharper, as f1.8 is really sharp while f1.4 is decently sharp.
-No screw drive for older cameras, not really an issue. Get a better body if you are still using an old old camera and have enough money to buy a lens like this, make use of the sharpness.
-Relatively big compared to over 50mm lenses, but its actually not big at all and balances really well with the camera. I have a pentax k3 and it is perfect.
The pros of the lens:
-One of the sharpest if not the sharpest pentax lens currently available when stopped down. Even stopped just a little bit gives incredible sharpness.
-Super fast aperature is excellent for blurring the background and makes a huge difference as far as the amount of light that is let in. This lens will open you up to excellent low light photography.
-Build quality is amazing and second to none. Limited pentax lenses are amazing too but not in a practical sense. Metal feels more durable and nice, but with premium plastics and rubberized focusing rings, the DA* 55mm will be able to withstand more abuse. It also comes with an excellent felt lined hood. Lens is completely solid and flawless.
-Weather sealed, take this thing anywhere. This is a huge plus and one of the reasons the price is justified.
-Flare and CA resistant, not outstanding but pretty good. Aerobright coating is great.
-Handling is excellent with silent AF and a smooth soft stop rubberized focusing ring. A removable piece in the hood makes a window for accessing and moving filters. There is an AF/MF switch as well as quick shift so you can autofocus and then immediately manually adjust.
-It's a DA* lens. It looks cool, it has gold on it, and it gives the impression that you are handling a quality product. It makes you want to use it, because you know it will take good pictures if you use it correctly.
If you want the best of the best (excluding autofocus speed), are interested in all weather and low-light capabilities, crazy sharpness, and crave that 3D depth of field isolation, buy this lens!!! Do not buy this lens if you want a 50mm prime just to explore photography and learn the basics. This lens will still be excellent, but it is for getting the most out of your camera, and therefore 5x as much as a regular "fantastic plastic" 50mm f1.8.Read full review
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: New
