A newbie writes

Hello all, only my first post and I already have a (no doubt) stupid question.

I've recently picked up a nice little ME Super to have a little fun with 35mm. I have the 50mm 1.7 and was looking around for a reasonably fast short telephoto (85/100mm perhaps 135) to go with it (I want to take the camera to small venue gigs hence the need for a lens that's reasonably fast).

To be honest, as a newcomer to Pentax, I could do with a little clarification on the lens mount: I know it's a K (isn't it?) mount but when I look at dealers in 2nd hand gear I get a little confused - could anybody point me in the direction of a guide that will allow me to avoid buying an incompatible lens?

Also, does anybody have any recommendations of lenses? If you've used anything that I've described, I'd appreciate any input.

I don't ask for much do I?

Welcome

You should look at this authorative site:

http://kmp.bdimitrov.de/

There are a lot of M series lenses on ebay which were designed for your camera and are similarily small and light.

Ken

Your camera has the original K mount with no elctronic contacts.

The short answer is you can use any Pentax bayonet fit lens, manual or auto-focus although obviously only in manual focus mode.

The exceptions are the very recent FA-J and DA lenses which have no aperture rings.

So in manual focus use:
SMC Pentax
SMC Pentax-M
SMC Pentax-A

AF lenses:
SMC Pentax-F
SMC Pentax-FA
SMC Pentax-D FA

Not suitable:
SMC Pentax FA-J
SMC Pentax-DA

Hope that clears that up!

Any of the Pentax lenses in the focal lengths you list will give you good results, but some are superb. A personal favourite is the SMC Pentax-M 100mm f2.8.

Thanks guys, that info will make things a little clearer.I'll be back to let you know what I get.

Is there a list of the different acronyms used on the lenses? I've searched for a glossary but couldn't find anything. I'd like to know what ED, smc, DA, etc. mean when I go lens hunting...
Thanks!

From time to time this comes up and a search of the forums should find the info you want. If not, mention it again and it can be repeated here.

For once the Pentax U.K. website comes up trumps!

http://www.pentax.co.uk/en/Photo_Lenses_Glossary.html

Dan

Thanks Dan, that's great.
Regards.