A while back I tried out some CCTV lenses on my Pentax Q-S1 and found they were universally dreadful. Today I tried out my Q-S1 kit, plus a 110 adapter and a selection of lenses from the Pentax 110 film camera range. I had the 110 18mm, 24mm and 50mm lenses, lovely little gems that performed well with 110 cartridge film. However, the digital Q cameras might be more demanding, so I was interested to see what the end result would be. This is hot off the press as I only finished shooting the images a couple of hours ago! The location was Astley Green Colliery Museum, a favourite place to test cameras and lenses.
Here are the two cameras with their standard lenses. The Q-S1 and the lenses are slightly larger than the 110 system, but themselves can hardly be called bulky.
The three 110 lenses used, plus the 01 Standard Prime from the Q range to show relative sizes.
The adapter cost around £10 from eBay, was delivered quickly and is well made.
Q 01 Prime, 8.5mm, shows superb sharpness.
110 System 18mm, showing even the wide angle lens is a telephoto on the Q cameras.
110 System 24mm, the standard lens, is a longer telephoto.
110 System 50mm, a telephoto longer than anything yet available for the Q. There is also a 110 70mm lens, but I did not have access to one of those.
Sample image from the Q 15-45mm 06 Zoom lens, which is a stellar performer.
The same shot with the 110 System 50mm lens, which shows excellent sharpness, but not quite up to the standard of the Q lens.
A shot into the light, untouched in Photoshop, from the 06 Zoom at 24mm shows excellent flare resistance.
The 110 System 24mm lens shows very poor flare resistance under the same conditions.
The limitations of the 110 lenses are firstly that there is no aperture control. This means all the shots are at f/2.8, giving no possibility of controlling depth of field. I understand that there are some small Waterhouse Stops that will drop into the adapter and these will enable other apertures to be used. That sounds interesting, but so far I have not found a source for these. The second limitation is the poor flare resistance, but having said that when conditions are more favourable good results can be obtained.
Next time round I'll post some more sample images and reach a conclusion as to whether or not the 110 lenses are useful with the Q cameras.
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