The Pentax FA 43mm Limited

I decided to start the new year with a new addition to the lens collection. Yes the dreaded "lens buying addiction" bug has hit me! The lens in question is the FA 43mm f/1.9 Limited. I really love the images from this lens. They have a hard to describe three dimensional like rendering that it's nearest focal length counterparts, the DA 40mm Limited and the ubiquitous FA 50mm just doesn't convey.



This is my second copy of the lens, an uncommon super cool silver version. I had previously owned a black version that a good friend had sourced for me and while I had some lovely images with this lens, the copy I had seemed to exhibit a bad case of purple fringing when shooting specular highlights. On this copy, the colour fringing was well controlled, hardly visible at f/2.8.

Now one would ask why get the FA 43mm when the FA 50mm has a wider aperture and much more affordable? The FA 50mm is indeed a fine lens but I needed a lens that was a little wider in angle of view and while the diminutive DA 40mm fit the bill, it simply is outclassed by the FA 43mm in maximum aperture, build quality and image rendering. I certainly hope to put this beauty to work in 2009.