New old Pentax user

Hi, my first post on PentaxUser, so I'm new here. But a bit old for new; I bought my first Pentax Spotmatic II in 1971, and replaced it with an Electro Spotmatic in about 1974 (not quite sure how as it was supposedly only sold in Japan and I've never been there... but Hong Kong perhaps). Then I remember getting cross when the K-mount came in, and replaced the ES with a Pentax ME, which I used, off and on, until around 1995. It later went to my son, then came back, and I've been using it regularly for the past 6 months. Recently I've bought a MX from a charity shop; I've also got a 135mm Pentax-M and a 28-50mm Tamron Adaptall-2 (both charity shop), and a Vivitar Series 1 28mm lens (serial no starting 28...) from another forum. So I'm having a LOT of fun. I'm not yet sure how much the film Pentaxes feature in this forum, but we shall see.

I also have an old Tamron K-mount 85-210 fixed length zoom. I've almost never used it, as it weighs a ton... around 750gm I think. It just overbalances the Me and MX, and I have very poor right hand grip. Most other zooms of similar range seem to weigh not far off the same. I have seen on the dreaded bay a 70-210 Pentax-A, which apparently weighs only around 300 gm, for a few tens of pounds. But I also read some rather disparaging reviews somewhere.

So, is that a reasonable lens for such ancient kit?

Oh, in the digital world I'm afraid I have a Fuji X10 (sharp intake of breath all round!).

Hello and Welcome

Hello and Welcome to the Forum!

Can't help you with the 70-210 as have never owned one, but sounds like you have some kit going on there!!

Hi and welcome .

Have you looked at the Tokina SD 28-70MM F3.5 and Tokina SD 70-210mm both compact reasonably light and very good lenses , in fact i still use the 28-70 doing flora shots on digital , there very cheap to buy too

Thanks, I haven't looked at the Tokina lenses. Worth a try. Any idea what the 70-210 weighs in actual grams? (Light is such a loaded term

Hi And welcome to the forum.. Hope you enjoy your time with us.

Hello, and welcome to a friendly forum. I can upstage you in the ancient Pentax stakes: I still have the Spotmatic which I bought in the USA in the mid 1960s - it is branded "Honeywell" because they had the US franchise then. I think it still works, though I haven't put film through it for 2-3 years. Really sturdy cameras that can survive a surprising amount of accidental abuse.

Enjoy your membership!

Martin

Hi and welcome to the Forum!

The A 70-210 actually weights 680g.

How about a pentax 75-150? It weights 465g and is well balanced on a MX/ME. Very good lens and contemporary to those cameras.

405 g.

You can find info here

Its 405g, its a nice lens , I also have a Tamron Adaptall 70-210mm i could also recommend ,i got this a few months ago ,not used it a lot but i have had some good images from it ,its very light and could just be what your looking for Tamron Adaptall-2 70-210mm Macro f/4-5.6 (58A)

Welcome to the Forum, I have used the Pentax-A 70-210 f4 from when it first came out, and at the time it was rated top of the bunch in AP, even beat Olympus, Canon, Nikon etc.

I used it with my Super A and ME Super, but both had ME II winders on them which helped with the balance.

Have you thought about a leather hand strap, I have them on my istD and K10D, I find they help a lot with the 300mm and 170-500mm lenses.

You could also consider a Sigma 70-210 APO compact zoom, Ive been very pleased with mine, and I think it might be a bit lighter than the Pentax A lens.

Aaarghhh I didn't check before posting, the lens I was thinking of was actually the Pentax-A 80-200 f/4.7-5.6 rather than the 75-210! It got a bit of a poor rating for handling, IIRC, so perhaps it's better to stay away from an auction copy. I'll keep looking for that Tokina in the local charity shops. The Pentax 75-150 is actually a bit short at the long end of the zoom, since I've already got the Pentax-M 135mm (a wonderfully light lens that you hardly know is there, but still seems to provide some reasonable results).

Thanks for all your comments. OldTaffy, you should give that Spotmatic an outing, you might rediscover the love!