Evaluating what my favourite lenses are early in 2025 made me realise just how my tastes have changed in the last twelve months. A little over a year ago I had no idea that I was to move from an admirer of the Pentax DSLR system to a user. Writing this article in April 2024 was the defining moment and catalyst for stepping into the world of Pentax. At the time of writing about the 31mm Limited, my interest in small, precision made lenses was rekindled, influenced by my appreciation of the Olympus Zuiko lens system used when I shot film.
After 35 and 50mm focal lengths, short telephotos are amongst my favourite lenses. Their versatility goes far beyond portraiture to become the third in a trinity of lenses that I covet. For decades I have kept one or two lenses of this criteria in my bag starting with 100 and 135mm Zuiko’s. As I moved into the digital world I added further short tele’s to my collection. Prior to getting into Pentax gear I purchased a Leica APO-Summicron-SL 75 f2 ASPH. And it is the disillusion that came with this lens that caused me to discover what has turned out to be one of my favourite short telephoto lenses of all time - Pentax’s D FA* 85mm F1.4ED SDM AW.
As part of building my second camera system to tinker with, I drew up a list of lenses that I intended to add in the future. For me, a good 50mm lens is an essential core component as I find I gravitate towards this and the 35mm focal length often.
Pentax have produced a slew of 50mm lenses over the years, so there were rich pickings from which to make a selection. At the time of purchase I had only the APSC Pentax K3 mkiii, but it had always been my intention to add a larger 36x24mm sensor Pentax camera at a future point. It is how I built my Leica system; to have both APSC and 36x24mm formats allows two different focal lengths for the price of one to be exploited (assuming those lenses are designed for the larger format). It was with this in mind that I started researching the market to see what what out there.
Nine years have passed since Ethan first wrote his thoughts down about Pentax’s Limited 20-40mm zoom lens here on PhotoArk. And while he parted company with it several years ago in pursuit of other fine lenses from the Limited series, its loss to our collection left a somewhat unquantifiable hole. It wasn’t that we did not have the focal length covered; we had primes and zooms that plugged the gap. It wasn’t that the 20-40 was the sharpest tool in the box; most of our primes could best it in edge performance at most apertures. It wasn’t a speed demon either; the variable 2.8-4 aperture could be considered a little sedentary, and it didn’t have a very large zoom range, which is something it has been criticised for over the years.
This article has been many years in the writing. Of the three Pentax lenses Ethan owns, the 31mm is the one we have never commented or written about. Ironically, it is the one lens that sees regular use when out shooting with Pentax DSLR’s. It is also the most favoured of the three and has been quietly doing its job for more than a decade. We were recently carrying out an evaluation of the PhotoArk site and from this it became glaringly apparent that writing anything about it had slipped our attention. The reason for this is that when we onboard a new piece of kit, we do not ‘rush and gush’ our thoughts, preferring to let time and experience temper enthusiasm. By doing this we believe that it provides a more balanced opinion which can only be garnered long after the honeymoon period ends. And so it was that our favourite Pentax lens was completely overlooked. This article redresses this and after such a long time in use it gives this beautiful piece of engineering its moment in the sun from a PhotoArk perspective.
My interest in Leica Zoom lenses has taken me on an interesting journey over the last few years. The first ones I acquired were for the TL system, notably the 11-23 and 55-135 objectives. Now discontinued these lenses are superb, albeit a little slow. Both remain in my collection and continue to be used, particularly when travelling. As I slowly moved into the SL system I read countless reviews as to how good all of the dedicated zooms are, so I thought I should try a couple out for myself. I have never really cared for standard zooms, preferring fast primes when working with my favourite focal lengths - between 35mm and 100mm.
A few years ago I wrote about how Leica’s 55-135 and 11-23 zoom lenses for the APSC TL/CL cameras had changed my opinion of zoom lenses for the better. I moved away from zooms four decades ago due to being very unimpressed with the output from them. The only exception to this was a 11-22mm Zuiko zoom for my Olympus E-1 in 2005. This was a good lens but suffered from severe purple fringing in high contrast areas. So when I got into Leica’s APSC system I decided to give zooms another try and could not believe how good they were. Over the decades I had become very used to fast aperture primes and realised that by going the zoom route, I was going to have to compromise speed for something more sedentary. With this in mind I held onto the couple of primes I was already using with my TL2 so that I would have access to fast aperture glass. The combination of zooms and primes worked very well and is one I still use when travelling.