Pentax DA 1224mm f/4 ED AL IF Lens

Do you hesitate to buy it?
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
This lens is savvier, more perfect than I expected. I don’t need to say about pros because lots of people already say about that in review. But this lens’ weight is quite heavier compared with other Pentax lens.

A nice ultrawide
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
This lens covers a handy range of focal lengths. At 24mm (equivalent to 35mm on a 35mm film camera) it replicates the popular moderate wide angle that is handy for car shows, architecture, landscapes and group shots.

Go down to 12mm, and you get a very wide view, great depth of field, and essentially no barrel distortion.

Although there is some overlap in the focal length of the Pentax 10-17mm lens, that one has the pronounced “fisheye” distortion (though not too much at 17mm), while the 12-24 maintains straight lines (it’s “rectilinear”) though if you are tilted up (or down), your subject will lean in (or out).

More expensive than some lenses but less than others, I say it is worth it. Its constant f4 maximum aperture is part of the cost (and weight).

It is a little bulky, not lightweight, and has a rather large lens hood, so you might have to rearrange your bag divider…

Pentax Wide Angle Zoom
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
This is a great lens and was exactly what I was looking for to shoot large objects in tight spaces

great construction, fair price, quality photos!
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
The sweet spot of the lens is at the wide end of the zoom range where the center quality is outstanding and the borders and even the extreme corners reach very good levels and that’s already straight from f/4. The center quality decreases slightly towards the long end of the zoom range. At 24mm it is advisable to stop down a little to lift the contrast level and to get a little extra kick in terms of resolution. Typical for most ultra-wide zooms the vignetting is quite pronounced at 12mm @ f/4 but the problem is already mostly gone by f/5.6. The level of distortions is slightly better than average. The primary weakness of the Pentax lens are chromatic aberrations (color shadows at the image borders) which are fairly hefty at 12mm and a little less so also at 18mm. This isn’t a principal show-stopper you are willing to invest a little time to reduce or even eliminate the problem during post processing (most RAW converters can help you here) but it can be visible at times if you prefer untouched JPEGs straight from the camera. It seems as if the lens is less prone to flare compared to its Tokina variant – surely an effect of the SMC coating. The build quality of the lens is very fine and regarding the moderate price tag you’re getting lots of bangs for your bucks here.

A must for the wide end
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
The main problem with the APS-C sensor is the fact that to get a very wide angle of view, you need a special lens. My old 20mm lens, which has served me for many, many, years, is just a moderate wide on the digital sensors.

With a few doubts, I sprang for this super-wide zoom.

WHAT A SURPRISE! This lens is AMAZING!

Low or no distortion (you can get away without correcting for distortion in Photoshop – quite a feat – unless you have a fanatical lunatic architectural client). CA hard to see. Very sharp, sharper wide open than any zoom has a right to be!!

Flare is so well controlled, I shot right into th sun and did NOT get the usual string of circles, just one ghost. How do they DO that???

The constant aperture is a blessing (I still refuse to buy a zoom with a variable aperture).

All modern lenses are polycarbonate. Supposedly, it’s more dimensionally stable than metal under temperature extremes. Maybe so, but I still have some of the older K and M lenses and some Limited lenses. I guess I’m just old fashioned.

But with the APS-C sensor, you need a VERY wide lens. This is the one that will save your hide on any assignment where you need ultra-wide angle of view.

Penatx has always been known for their glass. With this lens, they continue to impress those who know that the glass is what counts!

I love it, yet it irritates me
Rating:3 out of 5 stars
Instead of duplicating other folks’ reviews, I’ll briefly add a few points that are minor or major depending on your view.

First, my Pentax 12-24 mm lens (attached to a Pentax K100D) takes nice pictures when it lets me. With this lens, the K100D hunts for autofocus, and often gives up. I’ve become so exasperated that I have 3 pieces of masking tape attached on the focusing ring of the lens so that I’m shooting manual focus fixed at infinity. It works for most sightseeing shots outdoors. When it doesn’t, I need to loosen the masking tape, and suffer the skittish autofocus or focus manually. The autofocus problem can happen in broad daylight, with only a UV protective filter attached to the lens. My other lenses are not this bad.

Second, the big hood makes it devilishly difficult to rotate my polarizing filter. So much so that I don’t use the hood. But I get good shots anyway.

Third, although I also have the Pentax 10-17 mm diagonal fisheye zoom (wonderful lens), the Pentax 12-24 mm gives me great panorama shots, too. I use PTGUI to stitch multiple photos, and PANO2VR to create QuickTime and Flash movies.

Fourth, the lens is a bit slow, and the filter diameter is a bit wide. Meaning you need good light, and if you want a polarizing filter, the price will be steep.

Best darn wide angle zoom out there
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
This lens is amazing. If I had a choice of one lens to leave on my camera forever, this would be it. Its sharp, contrasty, and the angle of view at 12mm is AMAZING. The distortion is minimal to my eyes though I have not measured it. I’m just very happy with the results I consistently get with it.

Its very flare resistant and though the lens is mostly plastic, its feels very solid and well made. Not a whole lot of slop to any of its movements. Its very lightweight, so its not a burden to carry it around. I just wish it was a tad shorter, but this is not a complaint.

The range is very good for a walking around lens, the 24mm upper end gives about a 36mm angle of view equivalent for a 35mm standard film camera.

Just add a 50-135 2.8 and you have a great range for just about everything.

May be a perfect lens – in theory
Rating:2 out of 5 stars
I have been a dedicated Pentax shooter for over 30 years, using Pentax equipment for all my 35mm, 645 and 6X7 format applications. I loved the ergonomics, the incredible reliability and the uncomparable craftsmanship and optical quality of Pentax professional products – up until now.

I’ve purchased this lens brand new from Amazon and owned it for a year before giving up on it after the third and final replacement I got from Pentax due to horrible distortions, lack of sharpness and/or purple fringing I experienced with all three samples. I am still spending hours in Photoshop trying to salvage many compositionally great images I took with all three samples of this lens I owned. Some images can not be saved due to significant lack of sharpness (this was the third sample I received – horrible autofocus errors in addition to fringing and distortion), but most are salvageable, since the distortions I experienced were mostly of a simple linear type, and are correctable in Photoshop, although the second sample of this lens had an incredibly complex wavy distortion patterns, which can not be corrected by regular means or by DxO software. The purple fringing is another matter entirely, taking hours of painstaking labor to remove and was prominently present in all three samples I had.

This experience forced me to switch to Nikon for my wide-angle needs (I purchased the horribly overpriced but optically unsurpassed 14-24mm lens for the D700 I was also obliged to purchase to use this lens), but I am using the now discontinued but simply incredible Pentax 645 and 6X7 lenses on the D700 from 35mm focal length and up via a mount adapter. I was forced to sell off my Pentax bodies, in part because their other current lenses also suffer from total lack of quality control.

The bottom line – if you need a good quality wide angle lens for your Pentax, DO NOT BUY THIS LENS! Consider a Tokina 11-16mm lens instead, which beats Pentax’s and every other manufacturer’s 12-24mm offerings hands down. It is very sad to see such a great optical designer and manufacturer as Pentax go down the drain!

I am giving this lens two stars instead of one, because the SMC Pentax coating performed flawlessly – no ghosting, even when shooting directly into the Sun (do not try this with Nikon 14-24mm!) and because the physical build of this lens is great – solid, light and ergonomically superior.

Vivid color, amazing linearity, sharp to corners – but delicate alignment
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
Pop Photo (Apr-06) praised this lens as a “Wide Winner” for spectacular performance on bench testing: excellent image sharpness and contrast; imperceptible distortion ["best of breed"]; and barely notable vignetting at the short end. I can add breathtaking color, crisp contrast and ruler-straight linearity to that list. At first glance, a 2X zoom doesn’t sound impressive these days – until you realize that this parafocal zoom sweeps an incredible 100 to 60 degree viewing range, that’s just perfect for cramped interiors, group pictures or landscapes. This zoom is a landmark of stellar engineering: combining extra-dispersion glass and aspheric lens elements into flagship “great glass”.

But a finely-tuned optical engine performs optimally only if all cylinders fire in unison … at daylight trial, I noted a hideous ‘purple fringing’ [chromatic aberration] of trees and power lines outlined against an overcast sky — something was badly remiss. Rather than returning the lens, I packed it up for warranty service so as to alert the manufacturer to quality control slippage. Irreparable misalignment [probably from rough shipping/handling] was acknowledged; replacement with a brand-new lens was hassle-free as well as timely.

Should you detect distortion (run some test shots before starting a formal shoot!), fear not — Pentax service was knowledgeable, courteous, and helpful. To their great credit, exchange was virtually painless, and the new replacement lens at last performs flawlessly. Although the initial unit turned out to be a glass lemon, Pentax made good (try that with a new car!); I have nothing but praise for the fair and decisive warranty follow-through.

Tip: the bulbous cyclops snout of the forward element is close to the surface, begging for scratches and smudges. Protecting the front end with a haze or UV filter in essence adds an unproven 14th glass element to a balanced optical design — buy the high quality multi-coated filter (mounted in a thin WA ring) this star performer deserves to minimize glare, internal reflection and corner vignetting.