Why Do I Even Buy Expensive Lenses? Pentax-M 28mm f2.8 Review - Cheap Lens with Great Results 

And with that, I retire as a stop motion film maker. 🙇‍♂️

"I'm slowing learning that great images often have little to do with the most technically impressive gear." No truer word spoken. Amen.

I have most of the M and A lenses. Would never sell them. Great timeless quality.

It's great that these old lenses still work on the modern Pentax bodies. :)

Honestly, these are the best photos I have seen you take. I think the lens is phenomenal. The out of foucs areas are perfect and the color reproduction is excellent. Not too much contrast, but just enough to make it very pleasing to the eye.

First of all, the stop motion at the beginning of this video is a really nice touch. Your photos are great too. I rewatched this video before picking up a copy of this lens today for the K3iii Monochrome whilst I wait for the Limited 20-40 to arrive. Being able to use the vintage primed is a true benefit as I tend to prefer primes, I enjoy manual focus and these can also keep me going until I can add the pair of Limited primes I’d like in the future. I love the compact form of this lens and the build quality is great. The focal length is ideal for APSC giving roughly a 42mm field of view, which is in the range I tend to use frequently. I look forward to getting out and shooting with this lens.

Excellent! I have the old 50mm M 1.4, also a treat. Forces you to be a photographer, instead of a snapshooter. Sometimes the past has more to offer than the present!

Another great video :) I have the f3.5 in my collection and I've been pleased with the results. I've always noticed that the f2.8 is more popular on forums with some singing it's praises... Now I can see why!

I still have mostly m42 screw mount lenses along with pentax A and a few modern pentax lenses. I appreciate your efforts in revealing the value of the M series. The modern lenses are nice for my Pentax DSLRs, but, less is truly more. There is less to fail on older mechanical lenses. I've had the auto focus fail on one of my out of warranty modern lenses. I'm glad Pentax has put in the effort to allow compatibility with their old glass on their DSLRs.

I repair and re-sell a lot of old gear. So hard to nail down one particular lens I love, but I will agree with you on the MD series lenses. There are some great old lenses out there that are not technically “perfect” but as you have said, unless the only thing you photograph is test charts, who cares. A “great” photo is 98% subject, light & composition and about 2% hardware. Love the channel!

The M lenses are killer and were very high quality for the time especially with the multi-coatings. I have the 28mm 2.8 and enjoy it very much with my Pentax MX. The M 50mm 1.7 is another great lens that you can get for cheap. I have the 1.7 and the 1.4 versions and I prefer the 1.7 for it's smaller size and sharpness.

I have the f3.5 version of the 28mm and love it’s build quality and handling. On an APSC body is a great natural looking lens.

Thank you for this video! As a new photographer trying to learn the craft after working in film as a grip/dolly grip for 8 years, I have wondered much about this. I have a an older Pentax digi camera my dad got, and with the kit lenses. It takes wonderful photos in broad light and I have gotten some neat photos with the zooms, I always felt like I wanted something more artsy than the normal kit lens. My dad used Pentax when he was younger and then they did not really have zoom lenses like now, so I am sure these type of photos with your 20mm are what he remembered so fondly, that and the magic of real film. Now I got a Fujifilm XT30 ii for work, and I am learning about lens adapters and all these neat options for retro lenses.. I am so excited to find some Pentax lens adapters and combine the timeless beautiful build quality of the past with the new technology and retro feel of the XT30. Thanks for your vid, I really enjoyed it.

For a long time this was my favourite lens on my K10D, even though I also owned the excellent for its time DA 16-45 f4. An aftermarket split prism focus screen made it a great combination, reminiscent of using an old 35mm SLR. And it's firmly on my do not sell list, along with the camera.

i'm using 28mm lenses since 1990 on film cameras and i can recommend this Pentax SMC-M 28mmf2.8 lens highly. It is small like a pancake lens, with a Pentax ME or ME super it is a real pocketable combination ! Not bigger than a rangefinder camera ! The image quality on film is excellent, even at f2.8 and f4.0 ! There are two versions of this SMC-M lenses and both are wonderful !

Love this type of videos!!!

One of your best videos. Really enjoyed!

To answer your ending question : my favorite cheap K lense is either the 28mm f3.5 M or the 135mm f3.5 M. Both are great on APSC and Full frame, and both are great on film and digital.

Great video and some very cool pictures you got there. I have one of these amazing little lenses and I love using it. I have gotten some great results both with my K5 IIs and my film cameras.

Love this lens! I just picked up a 120 2.8 today. Should be a fun lens. Seems really well built!

Your narration is great. It's like listening to Tales of Lake Woebegone on the old Prairie Home Companion.

Loved that intro! Reminded me of those playdough stop animation television shows. I still use the Pentax-M 50mm F2 that came as a kit lens on the Pentax ME Super. I practiced and discovered photography in my teens with that camera, that my dad bought back when it was new.. and handed down to me in the late 90's early 2000's. Dont have that camera anymore, unfortunately... (ebay will rectify that at some point). But, the lens still takes pretty sharp pics when stopped down and chromatic abs are easily corrected.

My favorite cheap lens (for my Pentax) is an old J.C. Penney 28mm, 2.8 lens. Like yours, it has that metal build quality and delivers photos with “character” (I.e., they don’t look like today’s sterilized photos); however, it does not have macro. This lens helped me discover that 28mm is the lens size I prefer for general photography. If I find a decent one like yours, not over-priced, I will grab it. Also, it’s great to see your channel growing. I encourage you to maintain your unique style/flavor. It makes a huge difference. Be well.

It rarely leaves my K1000! I love the soft corners it can give wide open too.

These are great! I just bought an A7iii but also have an old Pentax with a few lenses including this one. I'm gonna get that adapter and give it a shot. Thanks for the vid.

Love the music in your videos.

i love this lens, bought one after watching this video and never looked back.

I'm with you on these modest priced M series lenses. I have several. I also have an A series version of the 28mm f2.8 lens. I bit of plastic in it but also a strong build and those fine Pentax optics.

Great review James. Just watching this video again as I just found this lens for $15 bucks at a thrift store. The 50mm f1.8 M version is one of my favorites as well so stoked to try this lens out.

I just got this lens and I’m in love...I also let out a squeal when I took the first shot. It seems to have that effect on people!

One of my favourite 'Astro" lenses. I have the K,M and A versions. Works at fast apertures but I usually stopper down to F4. Works well with 120 x 30 sec frames. Nice video

Currently have used Sony A7 £350 with Sigma 24mm super wide £25, Konica 40mm £40 pancake and Kaleinar 100mm tele £100 all via adaptors £40, total cost £555. Also have Helios 44M-7, Zeiss Jena Flek and a Tessar another £100 total. Got a M42 focussing helicoid for macro. The key to paying the least is buying lenses which need servicing and cleaning!

Fun animation at 0:07. Thank you for sharing.

My favorite vintage lens is Minolta 58mm 1.4. I use it on Canon EOS R and Fujifilm XT2. Pictures look awesome!

as someone who allways shot with vintage lenses there is something really interesting about it: you allways see people with expensive gear and everyone silently agrees that photography is super expensive. but once you realize, that you can take awesome photos with old lenses for pennies and all you really miss out on is autofocus pretty much, its like a revelation. when you realize photography can actually be super cheap and you look at someones elses photos with their expensive gear and then you look at your photos with that 10$ vintage bargain and you re like: ''honestly my photo is actually better'' because its the photographer that takes the picture and not the gear, its almost as if you re an alien living on a foreign world from now on... where you know stuff that others dont and it feels awesome and hillarious. yeah people... go on, spend your 800$ on that new lens so you can take a snapshot of random trees in your garden or to show how sharp your coffee mug looks like. meanwhile others pick up a lens for 20$ and take amazing photographs with it you could put up on a gallery

I have this lens and an old Pentax k30. I think you’ve inspired me to go out with it this weekend

Nice summary. I use this lens with an adapter ring on my Nikon D3100 in manual mode

I have a Pentax Super-Takumar 135mm f/3.5 lens off my dad's Spotmatic (some 45-50 years old) which I'm using on my Nikon D810. The colour rendition is simply wonderful with a creamy feel and in certain fields out perform my Nikkor lenses.

Beautiful video, i have this very lens, and i love it. I also have an old Olympus Zukio 50mm f1.8 that is also very special for me. I been using these with my old 600d for years, but now im waiting for an used 90d that i bought, cant wait to see how these lenses perform with abit never tech, especialy in low light.

More of these kinds of gear please..

I own a Canon T5i (700D) that I bought in 2014 as a college student with little money. My girlfriend own a Pentax K1 II and although I am a little bit jealous of her gear, I still prefer the simplicity and lower quality of my 8 years old budget APS-C DSLR. None of my lenses costed me more than 400$. I'd say from a quality stand point, I lose on every aspect, but I still fall in love with the aesthetic of almost vintage looking pictures that comes out of this 28mm f2.8 lens!

My favourite cheapo lens is another pentax, its the pentax-a 35-70 F4, I've picked up a couple of them and they are just amazing to use, smooth buttery focus, a zoom ring rather than a push pull and a rich colour rendition that has good contrast. I paid less than £20 each and they are always in my bag whenever the camera comes out with me. The zoom range isnt the widest but it works for just about everything that I have tried to get pictures of, from portraits, to architecture and landscapes.

Pentax M 50mm f1.7 hasn't left my side in over 15years, even when I transitioned to video! Absolutly love the M series!

I have a nice set of Pentax K series lenses K24/3.5, K28/3.5 and K35/3.5. They are a little bigger and heavier than the M series lenses, but very solid and well made. They are always fun to use on either my Pentax digital or film cameras, and give nice rendering and results. Inexpensive old lenses that are able to be used without adaptors are one of the attractions of using the Pentax system.

Great video. Sure, it doesn't have to be expensive hobby. I have both M28/2.8 and rare M28/2.0 and you can justify both prices (25$ and 250$). Yes, expectations must be different:) The first one is just a honest lens that help you work creatively. The second is amazing bokeh killer that will help you grow and evolve and push you to experiment. There are so many ways:)

Fast wide angle lenses have been around for a long time, but the video era and vlogging especially, gave them fresh impetus. Being old fashioned, I choose wide lenses on their ability to get as much in focus as possible. My 28mm AIS Nikon has f3.5 maximum aperture, and works beautifully. I just pre-focus, point and shoot.

pentax-m 28/2.8 is LENDGENARY! apparently everyone had one. now everyone should get one. i got one.

I just bought this lens, now it's waiting for it to arrive :)

I have lost sight of this lens. It was my first purchase and I loved it. It was my first experience of a wide angle lens. I physically lost it when I went to Australia and replaced it with an SMC-m f3.5 which addresses image making from a different, more perfected style. The dreaminess of the f2.8 is missed. I forgot that magic is the raison d’être of the SMC-m f2.8. It is a pixie-dust lens with plenty of 3D pop and saturated colours. I lost that when I got hung up on the reviews that disregard the many aesthetic powers it brings into play.

Lovely video. You got a new subscriber.

I just realized that I own that lens for several years, never ever really used it and totally forgot about it. I will change that!

Really great video! Yes, photography can be done with cheap equipment, it's the user that must be enhanced first... :)

This is one of the ones I kept after I sold so many this past summer

I just rescued a set of 3 pentax lenses (this one among them) from my grandmothers house, im impressed with the quality, i hope i can get some nice pictures with it soon

I have the Ricoh version of this lens. Excellent results.

I only have 1 modern auto focus lens and its the old sony 18-55 kit lens that i use for video, all my others are all vintage manual lenses, one being the Pentax-A 50mm f2 which is easily my favorite lens

I have both this and the SMC 30mm f2.8 and this 28mm outperforms it.

I am about to pick upon old Pentax 35mm 2.8 for $110. Going to shoot it on my old P3n that I bought new way back in 1993. Small Light and sharp perfect street combination.

Cool.nice image's.

after switching to fujifilm system (from olympus) i started with the fuji 35mm f2 prime, and the fuji 18-135 super zoom...but for some reason i just could not connect to that superzoom (even though many reviews praised it). So i sold it and bought a bunch of vintage primes instead. (i've kept the 35mm f2 and its now my only auto focus lens in my collection). As my 28mm focal length lens i have the vivitar 2.8 close focus, which i think is similar to this one - and is super close focusing (almost macro).

I just picked up a Pentax MX kit with a 28mm f2.8 and 85mm f2 for $70 , It even came with 8 rolls of expired film. Now I'm eagerly awaiting on my Sony adapter to try them out.

Top video! Super helpful as I just bought a Pentax ME Super and wanted to get both pancake lenses; 28 and 40 for the ME Super. But also, for my Leica CL APSC (which from what you’ve said in the video about expenses.. damn do I understand that). Anyways, you’ve earned a sub from me.

I have a Tamron 28mm f/2.8 BBAR Multi C which I mounted via adapter to my Pentax K5. Got it for $26, used. Nice bokeh, moderately sharp, a joy to use. But naturally, you would want a Pentax lens on Pentax camera. So am getting a used Pentax-M SMC 28mm f/2.8 from eBay for $44.

My first camera back in the early 80's was a Pentax, I've always had a fondness for the brand. Recently saw a great deal on a K50 and decided to go back to Pentax again. Enjoying the camera and finding great deals on lens. You just convinced me to add this 28mm to my collection. And just as said, I found one at price mentioned, Thanks 😊

I once bought M42 50/3.5 Industar for 100CZK which is about $5 and Helios 44M4 for 165CZK which is about $8.5 :D And also Pentax 28-80/3.5-4.5 with SF7 body together for about 300CZK which is about $15... sometimes people sell things without knowing anything about them. Yeah and also M42 Zenit E camera with another version of Helios lens for about 300CZK too.. But since mirrorless cameras with adaptors came, it is harder and harder to find such deals as much more people are now interested in those old manual lenses.. while around 2008-2010 prices of manuals were muuuuuuuuuuuch lower.

I got lucky with a Sigma 24mm 1.8 wide/macro lens (very rare - most Sigma high end Pentax mount lenses are rare) , which becomes a beautiful standard 35mm on my K3 and other Pentax crop bodies. The fact that I can get close to a subject and is a wide lens opens up a lot of creative opportunities. Its not perfect as it has a lot of your normal prime lens issues such as chromatic aberrations etc, all of which can be fixed in post, but its features out weigh those imperfections.

Pentax lens images look great!

I’ve owned this lens for about a year now, shot numerous rolls on my MX and finally have made up my mind that it’s just not working for me. I mean don’t get me wrong, for the price and built quality it’s a great lens. But I tend to be disappointed when I get my scans back and they are lacking a lot of sharpness, compared to the scans I get back taken with the M 50mm f/1.7. I’m gonna bite the bullet and buy some quality glass like the FA 31mm f/1.8 limited. I enjoyed the little review though 🤙🏽

Well they might be $20 where you are but in Australia prices range from $111.00 to $200 . That's on ebay of course. Love your channel by the way. Well done, always look forward to the next video.

Another amazing video!!!! I'm going to check one out. I imagine it's apsc. It's quite a bit more expensive when looking on ebay.

all M lenses are so beautiful and extremly good built. i love every single one.

I always prefer vintage lenses they add so much when doing non commercial work. That’s why I love the Nikon dslrs as they give loads of modern features and give auto focus with lots of Nikon glass that is old enough to have that old look But I got to have that Sony mirrorless to use a lot of the more exotic lens which aren’t compatible

Jesus those photos are amazing ! What I’m actually looking for ! Are they straight out of camera? Also in which camera you put it on and do you need an adapter ? I’m considering a new Pentax dlsr to use it with vintage lenses but I don’t have any info ! Thanks in advance

Niceee, i was actually thinking about getting that lens...

One of my favorite lenses is the HELIOS 44 it's also not perfect but it has a look to the photos I take.

I have one of these lovelies, for forty years it was glued to my Pentax MG. Now I have a Lumix GH3 and I’m still using the lens with an adapter and of course with the crop. I’m thinking seriously about getting a focal reducer to bring the crop back to .71. I’m using AP mode but lately wondering about Manual mode. Any thoughts fellow travellers?✌️🌻

A great review. Try the overlooked 50mm f2. It’s better than the f1.4 version. A lot less fringing and cheaper too!😁

I have the M- 35mm, and it is great.

The SMC M28/2.8 is a great lens and the only "M", which I kept for my ME-Super. I've been shooting with that set this morning :-))) And when considering the APS-C digital area, my bet is DA35/2.4. Even old *ist DS shines with that one attached.

The pic with the ants took my breath, and the best news is I own one.....Halleluiah, halleluiah, halleluiah........

I own this lens- bought it way back when to use with my K1000 and later my ME SE - used it a lot indoors to help get the whole family in the photo, I'll have to pull it out and take it for a spin

I was about to sell this, but I guess I'll regret my choice after watching this video. Thanks mate.

I inherited an older pentax film body and several lenses. Not interested in shooting film but would like to play with the glass. Should I grab an adapter and use with my mft body (em1 m3) or pick up and older Pentax digital body?

I got that lens for $1.50 at thrift store. It's pretty good.

I would recommend trying a Kiron 28mm f/2, if you can find one. I have a P/K mount version which I've adapted to M4/3 and got great results with the BMPCC4K.

I love my Pentax/ Honeywell lens (radioactive)

Cool. Does anyone know a way to use this lens with canon EF mount? I found this lens with my father's old camera gear and I'm looking for a way to use it with my camera ever since.

M lenses are my favorite lenses the 28mm 2.8, 100mm2.8, 135mm3.5 and the 150mm 3.5 all great lenses that I own and use they are so small and so light you can carry them without killing yourself from carrying heavy large lenses. The 135mm & the 150mm have built in metal lens hoods that slide in and out.

Hi what's the best adapter of this lens for fuji xt3 ?

Back in the early 90's I shot a Pentax ME super with a Ricoh 50mm lens. My professor at UT was surprised I wasn't shooting with Leica. My question is how could a college student afford a Leica?

Lovely results! Have you tried the FA 24 with the APSC K5ii?

Honestly and you have a lot to teach.

I'm finding the f3.5 going for even more and it weighs more. Kind of odd.I find most Pentax lenses really nice, even the old m42 55mm f2.0 take great pictures. Another bargain if you can find it is the Kiron lenses made in this era are really nice, I have the Minolta MD mount 28mm f2.0 and it's very nice.

It’s a really nice lens. From what I remember of the time when I used to shoot with a Pentax dslr, the 28mm 3.5 is where the money is. That lens had no right to be as good as it was. I still have both, although the 3.5 is a different sample from the one I used in 2006-2007. I need to do a comparison one of these days.

I have 2 of these. I rarely use it, but every time I do I find myself wondering why I don't use it more. Then I promptly forget about it again. Lol

Is it working with full framed camera ? Thank you

My favorite lens for astrophotography.

If you find the smc f 28mm, you should have the same optic with autofocus. The smc fa 28mm has another formula.

I love the build quality of my takumar lenses, but hate the idea of the thorium. Do you know if they used thorium in this lens?

I got mine for $5 at a Sally-Ann.