How to adapt your Pentax lenses on to Micro 4/3 cameras such as Fujifilm, Olympus, Sony and Panasonic.
Posted: 18/05/2012 - 00:00
If you're a visitor to the photography category of eBay you may have come across one of the many Hong Kong / Chinese suppliers who are selling adaptors to fit Pentax lenses on other camera bodies. One of these is an adaptor to fit lenses on to the Micro 4/3 system cameras from the likes of Olympus and Panasonic. It means you can buy a body and adaptor and then have access to all your Pentax lenses.
I decided to have a go with my Pentax lenses on an Olympus Pen E-P2 and thought I'd share a few tips.
Firstly the adaptor can be bought from several eBay sellers and the price seems to change daily and even on the same day you can find various price / postage combinations. The best thing to do is search Pentax to micro 43 and select "Price + P&P lowest first" from the Sort By drop down. At the time of writing the best price was £10.35.
Delivery normally takes between one and two weeks.
The adaptor is fairly primitive - there are no auto couplings, just a lens release button. This means that any control has to be done on the lens, and modern Pentax lenses without aperture settings will be at their smallest aperture. You could make a small plastic stopper to position over the aperture lever so it's at a different position - either fully open or at a mid point.
The autofocus is also lost - so you need to focus manually. The focus aid of the camera doesn't work so it can be a little tricky obtaining sharp focus. I tend to focus the best I can, then take a photo, magnify on screen to check and retake if I missed the mark.
The lens focuses on infinity and any models can be used, and the smaller CCD doubles the focal length so a 80-320mm became a 160-640mm, which is a pretty useful wildlife range.
Here are results from the four lenses I used on a trip to Padley Gorge in Derbyshire
First is a close up of a mini waterfall using the Pentax 12-24mm.
Next a millstone under an old tree using the 16-45mm on the Olympus Pen E-P2.
Then a close up of a moss stem that was on one of the rocks like those you see in the shot above using the Pentax 100mm macro on the Olympus Pen E-P2.
And finally another close up of the waterfalls from a more distant position using the Pentax 80-320mm telezoom on the Olympus Pen E-P2.
You can also use older PK manual lenses from your K or M series cameras, or even go back further and use Spotmatic screw lenses with a different adaptor or by adding your K to M-42 ring.
The versatility means you can stick with your Pentax system if you fancy dipping your toe into the world of Micro 4/3rds.
Members photos with related tags: pentax
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