Pentax M 28mm 2.8 – My Perfect Wide Lens

I’m just going to start this by saying that if you’re after technical specs, lenses groups serials numbers versions, focus charts and sharpness tests look elsewhere (Pentaxforums perhaps..)

As much as I like to nerd out over technicalities some time too, this post is not about that. Sure there are sharper, better, faster lenses out there, but what makes a great or, dare I say, perfect lens for you?

My journey into photography started in my early teens with an old Beirette camera I found in my grandmas cupboard. I just enjoyed the experience, the feel of the metal gearing, the shiny chrome body clockwork mechanism made me want to play with it more and more.

Years passed and I got myself a Nikon DSLR with a modern digital camera and gosh was I disappointed .

This was nothing like the idea of ‘photography ‘ I had from my youth; all magnesium, matt black, plasticky lens big screen, buttons and dials. I got used to it tho and it enabled me to record loads of memories and special moments over the years ,but there was always something lacking…

A few more years later and I moved away from my Nikon system into Fujifilm, this brought back that ‘hands on, mechanical, manual feeling. It made me enjoy the process, the experience of using the camera.

Now having a mirrorless camera opened up the door to a whole new world of opportunities in adapted vintage lenses.This brings me to today’s topic

The PENTAX M 28 mm 2.8 lens

Got this online for £20 – a few days later I received it. For a a lens made in 1980 – making it nearly half a century old now – I can say it’s in pristine condition.

Its diminutive size, lightweight build and very smooth focus and aperture controls just feel perfect on my Fuji XT 4.

The focal length works great for me. It works out about equivalent to 42mm on my crop sensor camera, so is the ‘perfect’ normal lens. This enables me to see and frame what my lens sees by closing one eye. It brings a natural perspective wide enough to get environmental shots and a few landscapes yet not too narrow as to overly flatten and compress the background. It looks natural yet has a 3D effect putting you there with the subject, any picture taken with it looks to me as I see it.

A lens like this helps me convey the emotion, the feeling that frame I saw without filtering it or distorting the look, putting the viewer into my photographic eye, not into my camera.

Of course it’s plenty sharp even wide open even close up, not clinically sharp, not perfect, like a modern lens would look, but I’m happy with it like this as I don’t see the world with the level of detail I see in photos taken with modern lenses.

This lens has a ‘character’ an organic look, inexplicable yet immediately recognizable. Also it slows me down a bit, it’s not a pro 2.8 kit zoom that auto-focuses in nanoseconds, I have to think about my framing, walk to my subject, turn that smooth creamy feeling focus ring, close down the textured metal aperture ring, think of a composition and a feeling that subject makes me feel and relate that in a beautifully perfectly imperfect image.

It focuses rather close too, at 30cm allowing me to get some nice environmental non-macro closeup shots.

In regards to optical defects this lens has very little, a minute amount of CA wide open, good flare resistance, I use it with a hood which seems to help the contrast a bit sometimes, but I would be very comfortable using it without also.The SMC coatings do a great job in controlling intrusive lighting.

It has all the modern qualities, without any of the clinically optically perfect rendering too many modern lenses have. The look it gives, the feel of using it and the satisfaction in the results it gives make it my perfectly imperfect lens.

I have recently acquired a 35mm Film SLR the great but quite unknown Chinon CE 4 to use this on film and experience the full frame field of view, which I really enjoy and look forward to post some samples from in another article reviewing this camera. Coming soon.

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