Tamron SP 24/2.5 adaptall II

This old lens uses the adaptall lens from Tamron can be used on almost any brand of camera with the right adapter. This is a unique thing and this adapter even gives the f-number to the body making full-open metering possible. On a digital Pentax you need stop-down metering with the green button, but is not the fault of this lens. At the time of release a 24mm was very wide and 15mm was even extreme (like 10mm on a crop).
This lens feels very solid and has been used very often by my dad (like you can see). Because of the nature of wide angle focal length I never missed AF, also because it's not a zoom lens, so you need the time to put it on the camera. As a point and shoot lens on a digital body, you could put it at f8 and focus at 3m and everything is sharp from about 1.5m to infinity. How needs AF? On a digital body it becomes a 35mm and this is my favorite length for overall photo's giving a very natural look to a picture.

Performance
Wide open this lens is as bad as the FA50/1.4 at f1.4, but this lens is 2 stops slower. f4 only makes the corner a bit sharper. This lens needs f5.6 to become good. At f11 it's very good and also great for a maximal dof. Comparing to my other MF lenses it can't compete. But when comparing to a M28/2.8 it's not so much worse. This lens has some very light scratches on the very small back element making this results worse then some other samples. This lens also has a good thing that is CA or better the lack of CA. This is very uncommon for a wide angle lens especially at that time. Maybe the Tamron coating better then most people think. I've always readen that the Pentax coating is top, but most re-badged Pentax lenses made by Tamron perform better from Tamron...hmmm But CA is only one aspect, this lens does suffer more from direct sunlight then the Pentax lenses and I don't have a lenshood for it. This lens also uses a uncommon 55mm lens-tread. The contrast is lower then avarage (I've given it a 8)

So what is it good for.You can use it on any brand you own, feels solid. They sell very cheap, but it's difficult to find a decent sample. I would rate mine BGN- and a when I look at the results from "Chasseur d'Image" the center resolution could be much better. If you are looking for a 35mm equivalent lens and don't want to spend money on the excellent and expensive FA24/2, DA21/3.2 or rare A24/2.8 then this lens is a option.

Tokina ATX-Pro 28-70/2.8 AF for Pentax KAF

This lens is just like the Tokina ATX-Pro 80-200 a professional looking lens. The finishing looks very durable and solid. I used it mostly together with my other Tokina lens and really liked the fact that it's one stop faster than the FA28-70/4. It has the same MF clutch like the other ATX-Pro lenses making it very good for manual focus to. It is also a lot bigger and heavier and I didn't take it with me on hollyday. I still use it on my Ist-D because it's f2.8 making portraits looking very good. Original it came with a soft case that can be attached at a belt, but only used it to store in in the closet.

Performance
At the wide end it already delivers very good center performance wide open, but the corners a still a bit soft on a crop body. On a full frame it's even worse. At f4 the corners get as sharp as the center and overall it delivers a nice looking picture. At f5.6 there isn't much to complain with top score.
At 50mm the lens already performs very good even wide open the only backdraw is a bit lower contrast compared with f4. At 70mm the wide open performance suffers from a bit of front focus, f4 makes it better but the difference at f5.6 is big. This looks bad but when you look at the FA28-70/4AL then this lens performs stop-by-stop better. It also not so uncommon for this kind of lenses and the Sigma at that time wasn't any better and less good build. In every day shot's (portraits) at 70mm and f4 look very decent and are good enough for 20x30 prints.
The bokeh of this lens isn't as good as from the ATX-Pro 80-200/2.8 but this is normal and I haven't seen a wide angle zoom lens having a great bokeh.

Overall I really liked the lens except at 70mm/2.8. Probably it would be better called the 28-70/2.8-4. But still it was good value and when you know that at f2.8 you have to stop at 50mm it's a good lens. This was the reason to do this test so I was able to understand why some shots weren't what I would expect. On a digital body the DA16-45/4 is as good and has more wide angle, but misses >45mm. What I read about the DA*16-50/2.8 is that is performs equal to the DA16-45 so this lens does even come close to this lens, but again misses wide angle. So why pick this lens? It's a nice focal length for stage work and close indoor sports, or it making a nice kit when using with a extreme wide angle lens like a DA12-24/4.

Pentax FA28-105/4-5.6

This lens was the kitlens with the Pentax Z1-p what I still find one off the best camera's Pentax 've made. It's 3.75x zoom and at that times is was not so common. I really liked this lens on trips and hollydays . The only bad this is that when using a build in flash you get vignetting until 35mm. It's a real powerzoom lens making it quiet easy to do zoom-shots. I've not really used it on this lens and it probably eats battery's.
When I bought the Ist-D together with the FA18-35, this lens has frequently been the second lens I took with me. Today it's the DA16-45 and DA50-200

Performance
This lens show's a typical performance of a begin '90's lens without aspherical lens-elements. At the wide end side it needs to be stopped down to f5.6 to become usable. f4 is usable for small prints like 10x15cm because the contrast is even wide open decent, but there is still a bit of vignettering even on a crop camera. At f11 it even delivers very good figures. That also the reason the Hyper MTF Program selects a as high as possible number at the wide end.
At 50mm and 105mm the lens is performce better but still need to be stopped down one stop to become very good (not great).
This lens got a 8 for CA and has a bit lower contrast than the other lenses in this test.
So If you look at these figures, you could conclude that it's a bad lens. Oké, it hasn't the perfomance of the current lenses (I don't have a DA18-55 kit lens to compare) this lens still performs better then the lens of a Canon S50 compact camera (max 1710lph) and the corners are as good as the center is.

Would I recommend this lens to someone? Hmmm difficult question. On a analogue body, probably because they sell rather cheap. On a digital body it depends on the amount of money to spend. This lens becomes a 42-160mm on a crop body making it a standaard- to light tele-lens. The DA50-200 performs better and is lighter but also more expensive new and second hand. The F70-200/4-5.6 is also a good lens but also more expensive. The FA70-210/4-5.6 and FA100-300 aren't any better but deliver 2x the range.This lens could be use together with a 18-35 (like I did) or 18-55. Outdoor it's very usable to take pictures of the kits. The only question is why it sells for more than the FA28-70/4 AL? Probably the reach you get.

Tamron SP 300/2.8 IF AF

With this impressive lens you can't take a picture without being noticed. I bought it after finding the 80-200/2.8 not long enough. At that time I made mostly pictures of tennis and 200mm wasn't long enough. The FA100-300 was better but not fast enough. I Found this lens by a pdml.net user in Poland. It was in BGN condition and has some small damage by fungi's on inner lens-element. They seems to be dead because it hasn't become worse over time. It's a white version like the Pentax lenses where in those times (A* versions). This is my only lens with internal filters (with a odd size of 43mm). The tri-pod mount is big and steady. It has a mechanical focus limiter which works in both directions. Thanks to this AF is way better then any other Pentax lens for sport- and animal pictures.The focusring can be protected by another ring that is covering it. The MF ring isn't damped like the Tokina's one, so it's a bit more difficult to focus manual. But I mostly pre-focused  the action and wait for the subject being sharp in the frame. On the Ist-D AF-tracking seems to be better then on the Z1p and it useful outdoor. Indoor single AF does work, but tracking is way to slow. Subjective this is my best lens (even with the lens-damage). But I only use it when I don't need to travel a long way, It's very heavy ±2.5kg and big. You need a big back-pack or travelcase.

Performance
Optical this lens is a dream. I can easily say this is a PRO lens. Performance is already good wide open with only a bit vignettering on a full frame camera. On a crop camera it delivers pictures that are usable. With  the noise performance of today's camera's it's a dream. Stopping it down to f4 gives this lens performance that is good enough for very large print. Also the bokeh is great. If I'm right (didn't count) it has nine blades giving very nice pictures with out-of-focus background. Most of the pictures you see in the dia show are shot with this lens. Most other with the Tokina 80-200/2.8 and Pentax DA16-45/4.
There is a normal amount of CA at f2.8 (got a 8) which is much better then the Tokina 80-200. At f4 I can only see it in test-shots but not in normal pictures. If you want better results go to Nikon, Canon or Leica Pro gear. It's probably on par with the DA*300/4 if compared at the same f-stop. But the Pentax is much lighter and much easier to take with you.
This lens also works great with the Sigma EX 1.4x en 2x teleconvertors (TC). I was not able to test it because I didn't had enough space from my test-chart. Like most TC's they add a bit CA. But stoped down to f3.5 with the 1.4x and to f4 with the 2x gives me decent pictures. The 2x needs f5.6 to become tack sharp, but most lenses do with a 2x TC. I think this is the only lens I would recommend using a 2x TC. I don't have a 15Mpix crop camera to test it.

At this moment there aren't a lot of lenses available for Pentax in this class. Sigma has a EX 300/2.8 and Pentax a DA300/4. I don't know if you can still buy this lens in Pentax-mount new from Tamron, they still make a light updated version of this lens. They're not sold very often second hand.

Tokina ATX-Pro 80-200/2.8 AF

When I started shooting more indoor sport-events I found the reach of the FA50 not long enough and my FA100-300/4-5.6 at that time not fast enough. Even 800Asa wasn't enough and 1600 Asa color-film gave a lot grain. So I bought this lens new from B&H. At that time I found it heavy and big and it didn't fit in my bag. Overall this lens looks great. It's well build and feels very solid, like most Tokina's do. I did consider a Sigma at that time but they suffered with firmware issues when new body's where released. This lens is still working perfectly on digital body's being a good thing. One of my Metz flashes and a Sigma AF 400/5.6 (non Apo) from that time doesn't work on the Ist D. Tokina and Tamron doesn't seem to have similar problems.

AF performance of this lens is good, but not great, my Tamron 300/2.8 and FA50/1.4 are faster. I found it faster on the Z1p then on the Ist D. The K20 and K7 should be a better, but no Pentax has a fast AF. Handling is very good and there is a tri-pod mount which I found very useful with a mono-pod.
Also when switching to MF (both camera and lens) there is a good amount of friction making it very useful for MF.

Performance
First I have to note that this lens does suffer from a little of back-focus on my Ist-D (about 1cm at 2m distance) , which I found-out after doing this tests. I think the score wide open could be 5 to 10% higher. This can be corrected in the newer body's.

Overall the sharpness is good wide open, but you need f4 to become great. I mostly use it at f3.5 to f5.6 and I think it performs a bit like it's Sigma equivalent. I recently bought a Canon 70-200/2.8 IS and when comparing day-live shot, I must say that at f4 they are quiet equal in performance (6mp Ist D vs a 10mp 1DIII). At f2.8 the canon is way better but also more the twice the price.
Like most telezooms vignetting isn't a problem but CA isn't that great especially wide open at 80mm. It only got a 7 wide open (about 3 pixels),. The good thing is that it's a lot better at f4 and gone by f5.6 (<1pixel) and CA is not that difficult to fix post process. I would expect it to perform better because of the SLD lens elements.

On digital crop body this lens becomes a great 100-300/2.8 lens! ($$$) I could only dream of
this focal length at f2.8 some years ago. This lens even works with teleconvertors (TC), but I would only recommend a 1.4x (on a crop-camera with <12Mpix). The 2x Sigma EX doesn't do very well with this lens because it add's some more CA and you have to stop it down to f5.6 (f11) to get sharp images (good enough for 20x30cm prints), AF needs to be very precise at f2.8 with a focal length of 400mm. On a K20D and K7 you don't need a TC, cropping the picture will do in 95% of the cases. Only in very bright light a 1.4x TC could be better.

Overall I like this lens and would recommend it to others how don't need blistering fast AF.The Nikon, Canon and Sony is better but are two to three times the prices. I find it nicer then the newer DA*50-135/2.8 in focal length, looking at other tests it seems to have less CA. I don't think the new Sigma 70-200/2.8 are better, but they have HSM motor's in them, making them quieter and probably fast (although no Pentax body has fast AF).

FA 28-70/4 AL

This is my first AF lens I bought and the reason why I stayed with Pentax so I could also use my dad's lenses.
This standardzoom is small and light making it ideal for traveling. It's missing the reach of the FA28-105, but is 1/2 a stop faster at 70mm. Optical it's a great lens and although I don't use it anymore, I'll keep it in case Pentax release a FF camera. They are quiet cheap second hand.

Performance
As you can see from the figures below this lens performed very good in the resolution test even wide open up to 50mm. The perfomance look a lot like the new DA16-45/4. On a crop camera like the Ist D there isn't a lot of vignetting even wide open (<1/2 stop). But on a ff-camera there was up to 35mm at f4, but It's gone by f5.6. What I like most about this lens is the great contrast in real life shots. And in my testings I gave it the highest score (a ten). The aspherical lens (AL in the name) gives this lens great sharpness from corner to corner, even on a FF body. As you can see the corners are not much worse compare to the center.
CA is also well under control and got a 9 overall. It's strangely a bit worse at 70mm then at 28mm under my test conditions.
The only back draw is that there isn't a lens-hood and at 28mm you can have some lensflare.

If Pentax would release a Full Frame body, this will be my standard lens. It's better then most (if not all) "cheap" Pentax standard zoom lenses from the 90's.

Extra information about testsetup

The answer to a question from a PDML member with extra info about the handeling of raw images.

I've used Adobe CameraRaw with the default setting and no automatic correction. Sharpening was set to 20. This could affect test results, although this amount of sharping is normal in every day use. All images where
judged with the same settings.
I've tested the setting of sharpening before setting it to 20. And I found it a good point making a fair compare of the resolution. No sharpening made it a bit more difficult to make repeatable judgment of resolution.
Setting it higher then 30 created artifacts and would lead to false conclusions. I found 20 good, and also the sharping I mostly apply seem to be between 15 and 25.

I know this isn't a perfect test, none is, but I already made these test for myself and want to share them with the world. The figure that I've got seems to confirm my subjective feeling about some lenses.

Pascal.