SMC Pentax-M Zoom 80-200mm f/4.5 - my photos and opinion

[PhantomLord]

Hi,

I bought this lens a few years ago (as a matter of fact it was first manual zoom I bought) and it arrive with bunch of fungus inside. However even so it was quite sharp with great contrast. Few days ago I decided to clean it out and sell it. The lens gain a little contrast and become even sharper. After taking this lens outdoor one day I decided to quickly withdraw it from the auction and leave it for myself .

It's not the biggest aperture zoom, but perfectly usable from wide open, I really like it as push pull zoom works great and focusing is smooth and easy. The only thing I miss is some kind of close focusing as this lens's mfd is about 1,6m and maybe it could be a little wider at short end. It works really nice with sun, flares are easily controllable and loss in contrast is really minimal. However CA is quite visible at 4.5 and reduces significantly at 5.6.
Aperture clicks are at: 4.5, 5.6, 7.1, 8, 10, 11, 13, 16, 18, 22 and 32.

Nevertheless, let photos do the talking . All of them were taken with Canon 600d in RAW and edited in Lightroom (exposure, contrast and color correction, NR and sharpening (amount 40-50, radius 0,9-1,0, detail 15-25, mask 0).

Photos of the lens:








First photos taken after cleaning out of fungus: (click for bigger size - 1920x1280)

1# ~80mm at f/5.6 or 7.1


100% crop of the previous photo


#2 200mm at f/7.1 or 8


#3 80mm at f/5.6


#4 80mm at f/8


#5 200mm at f/8


And now photos taken before cleaning (5 lenses inside with fungus spots)

#6 150-200mm at f/8


#7 200mm at f/5.6


#8 150mm at f/7.1 or 8


#9 200mm at f/4.5


#10 200mm at f/4.5


# ~100mm at f/8 with sun direct into the lens

[Drack]

Wow, a very nice lens in deed.. I had one myself, but the picture quality was poor so I sold it. You copy seems to be way better.