My first Limited lens ...

... A Pentax FA-43/1.9, in black finish (not my choice, i just took what was available).

Picture taken with a Pentax-K 85/1.8 stopped down to f/11 with a Vivitar auto extension tube of 12mm in cloudy daylight.


In the tradition of the Pentax Limited lenses, this one is very well built with a full metal barrel and front cap, and comes with a soft leather pouch (not shown here). Its focal length of 43mm makes it a "normal" lens for a 35mm film, but it becomes a very short tele (about 65mm) on an Pentax DSLR. Its compactness makes it quite discreet, especially in the black finish.
Despite its short rotation of about 120° from infinity to the shorted focusing distance, this lens is quite easy to use in manual focus mode because of the excellent contrast. And it is perfectly usable even wide open (see my previous post for an unprocessed sample at f/1.9).
Moreover, the front element doesn't rotate, thus allowing the use of a polarizing filter without hassle.

Here is another sample picture taken with this lens, a white Phalaenopsis orchid shot in artificial light on a black background.

Here, too, the image has not been processed, i just fixed the white balance and adjusted a bit the levels (the black background was far enough behind the flowers to avoid light reflections).

If only Pentax made this an f/1.4 ...

More to come ...

Happy new year ...

Happy new 2009 to everyone.



Pentax FA-43 Limited wide open, in unfixed halogen light. Image straight from the raw file without PP.

Have a nice shot.