I got my new (used) lens yesterday. It's the Pentax FA 80-160mm f4.5 for the 645N Pentax cameras. The only issue I had with it is the tremendous weight. Solution at hand.

The 80-160mm mounted on a Fuji 50Sii. And then remounted.

In spite of the 105° heat index today I've been having a wonderful time playing with the new arrival. The MF Fuji is a very ancillary system for me and I'm always loathe to drop more money into it if there are still Leica rangefinder cameras out in the wild that need purchasing. A couple weeks ago, on a whim, I picked up a Pentax 150mm f3.5 645 lens and a Kipon Pentax to Fuji GFX lens adapter. When I stop down the 150mm to f5.6 I'm very satisfied with the sharpness of the lens and in contrast to Mitakon and TTArtisan lenses that are "supposed" to be made for use on the pixie medium formats offered by Fuji and Hasselblad there is absolutely zero vignetting in even the furthest corners of the frames. The lenses for the MF Pentax cameras were designed to cover 60 by 45mm while the Fuji sensor is only 43.80 by 32.90mm in size. Obviously, a lens designed to cover the full 60mm will joyfully cover the smaller sensor more evenly. 

I've adapted a number of lens to the GFX format but all of the lenses I've tried that were originally designed for 35mm frames vignette in the corners and so does the 90mm f1.25 TTArtisan lens. I can live with it, I guess but I really wanted a couple of better lenses to use for projects on which I want full coverage without extensive post processing or after the fact cropping. 

With success in using the 150mm Pentax lens my appetite was whetted for more variety and I started looking in the same family. My next purchase was a 120mm f4.0 macro lens and it's been really, really good. Sharp everywhere and easy to handle. Both the 120mm and the 150mm are older, manual focus lenses but with the ability to magnify the focus areas with the GFX cameras manual focusing is a breeze. I have a wide angle zoom for the GFX as well as a 50mm f3.5 lens but I found myself looking for one more lens in the portrait range which could also provide more flexibility in choosing focal lengths for environmental portraits. The ability to crop to composition after the lighting is set is valuable. 

I plowed back into the Pentax 645 world and I eventually read about the 80-160mm f4.5 zoom lens. It's a newer, AF model and it has the same kind of focus clutch I loved on the Olympus 12-100mm Pro lens I used for several years. Push the focus ring forward and you are then in MF territory. It's fast and easy. There's not a lot written about the 80-160mm but what is out there is generally very positive. Exotic glass, 11 elements in 11 groups. Nice focusing ring. Great industrial feel.  Big points for sharpness and contrast rendering as well as low flare. But there is one parameter in which the lens gets low marks. That's the embarrassing reality of its weight problem. The lens weighs well over two pounds. Seems like special glass elements get heavy. Very heavy. And mostly front heavy. 

The original retail price for this lens (which is still available new for the Pentax 645 AF digital cameras) was $2,096. B&H still has new product but it's marked down to $1,399. A slightly used one, complete with caps and lens hood (9+) was a whopping $249. The price of a nice dinner out for two. With wine. 

I couldn't resist. The lens arrived on time. A first in a long time for Federal Express!!! The packing was B&H's usual perfection. The lens looks to me to be almost new. I put it on the Kipon adapter and bayoneted them onto the 50Sii. The combo is heavy. Even with image stabilization focusing at the long end can be trying. Any bit of motion in the preview is amplified by the 50 cycle sensor refresh rate. It seems to me to be a combo that will be most at home on a tripod. The important part being the reduction of hand tremor in order to hit focus at the long end. 

Handling the combination it's immediately apparent that there is a lot of weight to the front. I worry about the integrity of the camera's lens mount ring. So I started digging around in the equipment closet and found an old rig originally purchased for video and I adapted it to hold the camera and lens with a lens holder taking most of the weight off the lens mount. If I was a sports photographer all of this would be unworkable. The combination of having to focus manually and the weight of the unit would make it all a non-starter. Fortunately I am a portrait photographer and have a high regard for the stable platform of a good tripod. And I like shooting the landscape format. Win-win. 

With the lens and camera individually well supported I am able to work confidently with both. It's rather imposing looking which might be exactly what I want next week for a day long project making environmental portraits of accountants in their very, very nice, new 17th floor offices in a brand new downtown high-rise. Not every company has abandoned office space....

I scouted this morning around 11 a.m. and found great and very usable locations everywhere I looked. And I think the subjects will take this camera seriously. It's like the "Darth Vader" of rigs. 

the obligatory detail shot. 

the art of scouting is really the art of transferring the idea that everything is possible and that you, the photographer, will have the future shooting situation well in hand. The location will always be whatever it will be...

Read a great quote from an Olympic diver today. Can't find the original source but I am adding this to my workout mantra going forward:

"My body achieves what my mind believes."

Back to playing around with bigger cameras. Have fun out there.