Quite the title, eh? It’s well known that the DA* 55mm f1.4 SDM lens is the successor to the FA* 85mm f1.4 lens. The difference is that the DA* 55mm lens is designed to take the crop factor into account to give the user an equivalent of 85mm on all current Pentax cameras. So I was thinking today, why not compare the two lenses, but instead of a direct comparison, let’s consider things like crop factor (focal length multiplier), sensor size, and equivalence. What do we really lose with using lenses on crop sensors and how are things affected with additional tools like a teleconverter (TC). I don’t have a full-frame camera to test with, so I can only give you so much data here in regards to how crop factor affects output. I’m going to speculate and measure example photos to give you (and myself) a better understanding of what type of lens these two would be like if we had Equivalent full-frame lenses. Equivalence is a touchy topic with some photographers. Some say it doesn’t e...
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