Experience with 28mm lenses

asfethan · Posted: Tue Jun 23, 2015 11:58 pm Post subject: Experience with 28mm lenses

Greetings! I want to ask you what is your best 28mm lens you have or you had for landscape photography?
Great sharpness at infinity is required by default so there is no need to discuss this aspect.

Instead you can provide your thoughts about contrast, coatings and colors rendering.
Informations about your equipment like filters and hoods are also welcome.

I want to discuss this because I have Hoya HMC wide-auto f2.8/28mm which is my favorite lens but it's extremely prone to flare and in some conditions it also lacks contrast.
If you know this lens what do you think?
Can something like hood solve that for 100% and if yes, what kind of hood? Petal? Round?
Is it better to pick something else to use as "I'm sure this picture will look good if I'll use this one" lens?
It comes to me that Hoya is able to flare even at night when pointed to source of reflected artificial light. At cloudy day I noticed flare from clouds Shocked

I'll appreciate all lens reviews and informations but if you can recommend me some pieces especially with M42 or P/K mount do it please.
Currently I'm thinking about SMC Pentax-A f2.8/28mm because I have one lens with SMC coating and it seems to be pretty fine..

iangreenhalgh1 · Expire: 2014-01-07

That Hoya is a good lens, better than most third party 28mms, made by Tokina. To have flare as bad as you describe, it is probably in need of a cleaning.

What camera are you using?

You will probably be better off buying a modern Sigma 1.9/30 lens, to be honest.

The Mamiya Sekor 2.8/28 is very good, as is the Pentax A or M 2.8/28, with my vote going to the Mamiya.

Excalibur · Expire: 2014-04-21

Well you are probably going to get about 15 different answers for old film lenses....but in the pecking order from the top to mediocre Carl Zeiss Distagon Holywood is one of the top lenses, then it's debatable if you can see the difference in comparison from say Nikon or Olympus offerings.
For me using a film camera the Hexanon 28mm is one of my favourites.

iangreenhalgh1 · Expire: 2014-01-07

On digital, the differences are clear. On film, not so much, so trotting out the tired old 'well, on film....' line isn't helpful in a digital environment.

rudolfkremers · Expire: 2015-08-08

What about the Nikkor 28mm f/2.8 AIs? It has a tremendous reputation...

zanxion72 · Joined: 11 Dec 2012 Posts: 145 Location: Athens, Greece

The Nikkor 28mm 2.8 AI and AI-S (especially the AI-S version with the CRC feature) are of the best ever 28mm lenses.
You can also try Mir-10A 28mm 3.5 in M42. It has a distinct star shaped aperture, focuses down to 20cm, it is pretty sharp all over, minimal distortion (less than Nikkor 28mm) and an exchangeable mount (M42, M39, Pentax K and Nikon F). On the downside, it is a bit large and heavy for a 28mm lens and it is single coated.

memetph · Joined: 01 Dec 2013 Posts: 940 Location: Poland

If you use a cropped sensor which seems to be the case , the choice might be different . The differences between good and less good 28mm on a FF sensor is mainly out of the center, with distortion , loss of sharpness and CA.
My prefered 28mm with my A7 is the Pentax K ( not M) 28 3.5 : nice colours, contrast and sharpness across the frame . Low CA.
A very good landscape 28mm on a Sony A7. My Rokkors MD and MC are certainly as good ( better ?) but in the center then the Pentax wins.

Aanything · Expire: 2014-05-30

my two favorite landscape wides are the nikkor ais 2.8/24 and the distagon T 2.8/28 MM.
I like the distagon better over the nikkor 28 because of slightly better sharpness and contrast at f5.6-8, which are the apertures I usually use for that kind of photography, and the incredible flare resistance (the more modern nikkors are good too under that regard). They both show a bit of barrel distortion, but in a standard landscape you really have to pull out guides in photoshop to see that.
I know, it's a bit expensive, but you can find it under 200 euros, and it's really great, imho.

Here's a sample from the distagon, taken at Giglio Island, Italy - the sun and the beauty of the Island obviously help.

Giglio Porto by Alessandro Lucchini, su Flickr

some more here

I like the mir 10A too, because of incredibly even sharpness across the frame - not outstanding in the center, but the borders are basically the same as the center, which is quite good for landscapes, but it suffers from flare a bit more than I'd like.

Lloydy · Expire: 2022-01-01

In order of what I really like to what I will keep - Vivitar Series 1 28 1.9, the lens with a tapered shape, is superb but needs a hood. Minolta Rokkor SG 28 3.5, slow but very good indeed. Yashica ML 28 2.8, is a lens that always impresses me. The Hoya you already have is good. And most of the major manufacturers like Pentax, Canon or Olympus will have excellent 28's, there's a lot of choice.
And don't ignore the very common Vivitar 28 2.8 either, it's a great lens that's dirt cheap and very common.

Tedat · Joined: 08 Nov 2011 Posts: 800 Location: Berlin/Germany

for me it's a tie between Zeiss Distagon 2/28 (Hollywood) and Konica UC Hexanon 1.8/28.. both use a floating element and are great at close distances and infinity.

kuuan · Expire: 2014-12-26

asfethan · Posted: Wed Jun 24, 2015 9:05 am Post subject:

miran · Joined: 01 Aug 2012 Posts: 1364 Location: Slovenia

I have only limited experience with 28s. I have a Minolta MD 28/2.8 which is OK, but not really that impressive, just good enough. But it's cheap and does well for most purposes a 28mm lens is normally used. I also have an old rebranded 3rd party 28mm lens that I have no idea who the original manufacturer is (it says Super Carenar on the front) which is an interesting lens but certainly not for someone looking for a shard from corner to corner landscape lens, so I won't even mention it. I think any of the major manufacturer's 28s will be good and cheap.

But what you definitely need is an EVF equipped modern mirrorless camera. Trying to focus an old wideangle lens through an OVF on a cropped sensor camera and a low end one at that, is an exercise in frustration. When you do get a mirrorless, you will no longer care about hard stop at infinity. In fact it's in my opinion preferable that the lens goes slightly past because of different tolerances in different lenses and adapters. There's nothing more frustrating than a lens that stops only just slightly before infinity because something is a fraction of a millimeter out of spec.

asfethan · Posted: Wed Jun 24, 2015 12:00 pm Post subject:

Today I read about ability to focus beyond infinity because of temperature changes compensation.
It's mostly seen on modern AF lenses but maybe this is the case of that Tokina I have. I really don't know.
In one discussion there was mentioned that Canon introduced this feature to some of its tele lenses with fluorite elements in 70's.

That Tokina has P/KA mount so it's not an adapter issue.
I agree with you that focusing to infinity via OVF is great source of frustration more than once because one will be frustrated while focusing and the second frustration will come in PP phase.
But Pentax cameras has focus confirmation even on manual lenses without electronics. All I need to do is to test this thing if is it usable and if I can get acceptable sharpness via this way.
Maybe I'll do mark on barrel if I'll find some sweet point of sharpness.

Also I found one sentence as respond to question "Why do some lenses focus beyond infinity?" which I have to share with you:

Excalibur · Expire: 2014-04-21

Rick1779 · Expire: 2014-06-06

minolta rokkor 28/2
SMC Pentax K 28/3.5

asfethan · Posted: Wed Jun 24, 2015 1:57 pm Post subject:

invisible · Joined: 06 Jun 2013 Posts: 344

Vivitar 28 f/2.0, Komine version.

marcusBMG · Joined: 07 Dec 2012 Posts: 1318 Location: Conwy N Wales

asfethan · Posted: Wed Jun 24, 2015 8:02 pm Post subject:

One piece every month. That's rare in my opinion.

Before two hours I tried to remove ricoh pin from that Tokina lens but there is no difference.
I got sharp results but I had to focus with pentax built-in focus confirmation to get sharp picture.
It seems that infinity focus lies before its mark on barrel. I don't know if it's lens construction or someone tried to clean
that lens and he messed up something with elements positioning. Is it possible? How can I check that?

marcusBMG · Joined: 07 Dec 2012 Posts: 1318 Location: Conwy N Wales

StillSanj · Joined: 21 Apr 2015 Posts: 412 Location: United States

I do not have vast wide-angle experience, but my pentax-A SMC 28mm 2.8 never ceases to amaze me. Got it for $25 dollars mint, and it has great coating, nice close focus distance and is a joy to use. If you get a chance to pick one up for less than $60, I would do it. Good luck

uhoh7 · Joined: 24 Nov 2010 Posts: 1300 Location: Idaho, USA

Iron Mountain Whitebark by unoh7, on Flickr

My favorite 28 and I believe the best in the world until the new 28 Lux becomes available. 28 Summicron M seen above at F/2.8. From a design stand point this 28 leaves all others in the dust. Convex front and back. One of the first modern Leica lenses, introduced in 2000. Incredible WO and unbeatable at f/11. Used prices have been falling steadily, today 2500 will easily find you a perfect one.

DSC08512 by unoh7, on Flickr

Having f/2 available on your 28 is like owning an extra lens, which weighs nothing LOL

On a budget I would probably grab a CV 28/1.9 LTM, which is really very good.

tb_a · Expire: 2019-08-28

asfethan · Posted: Thu Jun 25, 2015 10:24 am Post subject:

Thanks for samples and opinions again! Wow you have interesting budget. For me it's a hobby and I didn't pay for camera that price you are able to pay for single lens. Instead I'm very happy with little surprises among bargains.

I found one /in my opinion/ interesting lens in the meantime I'm stalking that K Pentax prime. Details coming soon if I'll win that auction. But it's not well known lens so even I am very curious about it. Laughing