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Lens Review: Pentax SMC 28/3.5 Shift

Henri Toivonen January 20, 2023

Shift lenses are one of those things, most people don’t need them, don’t know what they are, don’t care.

But I think that once you have done some large format photography, not having one when you go back to 35mm feels annoying.

I wouldn’t call myself an architectural photographer, but I do some cityscapes and old buildings and such, and having straight lines just feels so much better. But if I can’t get myself on a crane to get really high, I don’t really have any options. Either I use a wide angle lens and accept that half of the frame is pavement (and then crop in post), or I need a shift lens.

The Pentax SMC 28/3.5 Shift lens in quite rare, I have been looking for one for many years. I’ve bid on a couple on Ebay but didn’t win, and I haven’t seen any for sale here in Sweden during this time. But now, finally, a few months ago I bought one. And now I have shot a couple of rolls with it and feel comfortable on giving a review on it.

Pros

  • It’s a shift lens. It gives me larger than necessary image circle and allows me to shift the “crop” in whatever direction I want. This means I can crop out the pavement already in the camera and only show the house, while giving me straight lines since I had the camera level

  • It feels very well built. It’s heavy as a tank, everything is metal, no plastic details that can snap off

  • Image quality is good to very good at f8-f11

Cons

  • Handling is not the best. It has a manual aperture, so you have to compose wide open, stop down to meter and take the shot. There are a lot of rings, two rings for the aperture, one focusing ring, one filter ring and then the entire thing spins for shift-direction. The lens will slow you down, way down. It is not a good “walk around lens” for this reason

  • It’s heavy. It’s solid metal, which is nice, but it is large like a 67-lens and it makes it very heavy

  • Image quality is low to decent at f2.8-f5.6. It is not the sharpest of lenses, and if you shift all the way to the edge the image quality suffers more. But I don’t really see any need for shooting this wide open, ever. You want to use a tripod, you NEED to use at tripod with this lens.

  • My lens has a sort of wobble at the lens mount, and based on google searches this is a common problem. While it can be fixed quite easily by opening up the back and tightening a few screws, I’ve never had this problem on any other Pentax lens (and I’ve used quite a few)

Image examples

View fullsize 192-18.jpg
View fullsize 192-12.jpg
View fullsize 192-06.jpg
View fullsize 195-33.jpg
View fullsize 192-02.jpg
View fullsize 191-11.jpg

Conclusion

I am really happy I got this lens. It serves a very specific purpose, but for that purpose it is an excellent lens. I feel like I can more easily accomplish my creative vision in certain situations. But unless you feel like you are struggling with getting straight lines while doing architecture and such, on a 35mm camera, I would not recommend getting this lens. It is rare and expensive, heavy and slightly annoying to use.

← Lens Review: Mir 20mm f3.5 MCMy current creative process - or how I make the zines →

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