This is the small, wonderful Pentax 43mm limited lens. It was a lens I didn’t think I would love as much as I do, and because I love it so much, it has earned a permanent place in my camera bag. A difficult feat. Many a lens has failed to pass that test and was sold off, so that’s saying something. Check out my video and read on.
I still shoot the Pentax 43mm Limited all the time, almost exclusively on my Pentax K-1 where I think it really shines. Even with all those shutter clicks I had never shot with it on film before. That is, until now.
As a reminder, this lens was the first in the limited series, which is a big legacy for Pentax. That was 1997 when it was first released: Pentax’s first digital SLR didn’t come out for years later, so definitely made with film cameras in mind. The build quality is superb. It is compact, despite having a large maximum aperture of f/1.9. The fit and feel of the lens on a 35mm camera is perfect, in my opinion, and it looks sharp to boot.
Unfortunately, I don’t have any ZX’s or other Pentax SLRs with autofocus, so I couldn’t try out the auto focusing. Which is a bummer, especially because the manual focus ring on this lens is one the most annoying parts. It’s so small and hard to use. It moves super easily, so precision is difficult, and good luck finding the thing in a hurry. Thanks to the split focusing design on the P3 I was still able to get a respectable hit rate of in-focus images. It doesn’t totally taint the experience, as there is so much more to be happy about here.
As an aside, this year I set a goal to try out more color films, which didn’t end up really working out for a variety of reasons, but mostly because I realized after a few rolls that I just don’t like color film as much as black and white film. Obviously this is personal preference, and you shouldn’t be offended. Maybe you can even try to win me over again. I’m contributing some of that to the rolls I developed, scanned, and edited myself, which are subpar, but even the ones that came back from a pro lab didn’t quite have the level of excitement that black and white film scans give me. But, I did develop the film myself for the first time and shot more rolls than I have in a while and learned a lot in the process, so I’m still calling it a win.
The Pentax 43mm Limited is super sharp when you want it to be, it gives you bokeh when you want it to. The focal length is a great combination of wide-enough and tight-enough for most documentary situations. This versatility makes this a great lens to slap on a camera and leave there for the foreseeable future. All the things you can say on digital apply here too, of course. The magic is real.
As much as I love the lens on film, the not-so amazing experience with manual focusing leaves me wanting to point out that for a tenth of the cost and about the same size and still wonderful image quality, you can use the Pentax-M 50mm 1.7. I sold my last copy because I felt silly owning so many primes in the 40-60mm range, and I still do, but man. I regret passing on that lens. Might need to go back and grab one again.
Do you own this lens, and, have you ever shot it on film before? I’d love to see your results.
Go out there and takes pictures of whatever, with whatever, have fun, and until next time, happy snappin’
Fujifilm Superia 400 on Pentax 43mm 
Fujifilm Superia 400 on Pentax 43mm 
Fujifilm Superia 400 on Pentax 43mm 
Fujifilm Superia 400 on Pentax 43mm 
Fujifilm Superia 400 on Pentax 43mm
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