jlehet Offline Upload & Sell: Off
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I did the front filter modification with my copy of the contax g 28 2.8, and it is brilliant. (Thanks to FM-ers and the how-to on phillipreeve.net for that!). I used it a lot on the Iceland trip in late August (just got back a few days ago) and in casual review, no printing or post processing at all yet, it held up to the Loxia 21 and 50 in brilliance, sharpness, microcontrast. On the other hand, out of I think 3 or 4 attempts to get a good copy of the Pentax 28, I never could get a good one. One or both edges would be soft every time. My best copy was the first try, which had fungus. It was the sharpest, but the fungus hurt the contrast. I don't doubt you people I trust that the Pentax can be great, but I just couldn't find a great one and gave up. Either there are a lot of bad copies out there, or I just had terrible luck.
I also brought along the Oly 24 2.8, which in my previous use was quite good at f11, but I didn't use that lens once for some reason.
The downside of the g 28 front-filter mod is that you've got a slightly funky setup in the field. I was at a waterfall in the west fjords at the end of a long day, and I was beat and had been climbing up the waterfall and photographing for a while. I went to take the ND filter off of the Contax to put it on one of the loxias, but in my exhaustion what I had done was take off the 52 mm clear filter holding the front lens down, thinking that was the ND, which I had already removed. Which meant that the tinkling glass sound I heard was the front lens falling out and onto rocks below. Amazingly, it hit on the edges and didn't scratch the optical surfaces at all.
So it seems if you are looking for a 28 and don't already have a good copy of the Pentax, going through the hassle of modding a G28 will likely yield good rewards, while trying to buy a good Pentax might be gamble. I suppose it's a hassle either way, Ebay re-selling or returning, vs the whole front lens setup. If you can get lucky with the Pentax with one try, you're golden with less hassle.
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