A thread called The XR Rikenon 50mm f2 sharpest 35mm lens claim got me very intrigued about this lens. At a glance it seemed to me to be comparable to a Pentax-M 50mm f1.7 in that it is said to possess a good sharpness wide open and goes for very cheap on ebay. When one came up on a Finnish photography forum for 30€, I knew I had to buy it to see if there was anything to the talk. Only when the lens arrived, I noticed it was the Ricoh XR Rikenon 50mm f/2 S.
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The Pentax Spotmatic SP – serving photographers since 1965
The ability of even the newest Pentax DSLRs to utilize lenses going back at least 45 years is known to many Pentax shooters, and old but excellent Pentax glass is used with the help of various ( PK-, M42- mount) adapters by shooters of other camera brands, even on full frame cameras such as the Canon 5D.
Most Pentax shooters are focused on photography, not showing off or making a fashion statement. Therefore, it seems that Pentax shooters are often not averse to using old equipment if it produces great results. But if one does not own or inherit a set of lenses, it is often hard to know which lenses or accessories are worth the price and trouble to track down and buy. This information can be gleaned from perusing forums such as Pentax Forums or MF Forums, but I thought it would be a good idea to blog about some of the most valuable “Hidden Gems” for the Pentax cameras. In this post, I’ll start with the wide angle lens creating so much ado (even touted as the FA31mm Ltd replacement) on the PentaxForums: the Vivitar 28mm/f2.8 (or f2.5 or f2.0).
The Vivitar 28mm/f2.8 MC Wide Angle
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