New year, new member, new camera

OK, OK, it's not 2012 quite yet, but I'll clearly be far too hungover tomorrow to post coherently, so thought I'd say hello now.

Anyway, just bought myself a new K-r with single-lens kit (from Clifton Cameras - having had a surprisingly bad experience with SRS), and very rapidly added a load of 2nd-hand lenses as well (thank you EBay). So far I've got a 50-200 D-Xenon, 70-300 Sigma, and a lovely old Pentax-M F/1.7 prime.

I should probably stop now before my wife kills me, but I *just* need to add a decent flash to the line-up. Anyone got any experience of the Sigma EF-610 DG ST or Metz Mecablitz 44 or 50 AF-1 with a K-r? The latter's probably pushing my budget a bit, so I'd be interested to know if the extra money over the 44 is worth it?

Anyway, probably far too much waffle for a first post, so a belated Merry Christmas and a premature Happy New Year to all.

Alcoholic, lensoholic and a sense of humour. I think you are going to fit in here well. Hello and welcome to the forum.

Welcome Adrian,

The KR seems very happy with old lenses. Enjoy!

Welcome Adrian, enjoy the Kr great camera, and as Bill says, they get on very well with older lenses!

Bill could you expand on this ? What could i buy 2nd hand that would work with my K-r ? Obviously i know zilch about lenses

Well I for example wanted to try macro.

I bought an old 35 - 80 kit zoom from a film SLR (£20 from Rocky Cameras), added cheap manual extension tubes (£7.99)and meter using the green button with of course manual focus. Works a treat.

I of course now want a posh macro lens!

Darren there are loads of old lenses out there, some are fantastic quality and very cheap! If you don't mind manual focus I would recommend the following:

- Any of the M42 mount Takumars (adaptors needed, but these are cheap and I keep one permanently on each lens, making them as convenient as a K-mount lens), I particularly like the 135mm F3.5 and the pre-set Tele-Takumar 200mm F5.6, both have fabulous image quality
- Pentax-M or Pentax-A 28mm F3.5 (reputedly better optically than the F2.8 version)
- Also Chinon 50mm F1.7 or F1.9 - my F1.9 is probably my favourite lens for image quality - it is ultra-sharp and has lovely colour rendition

I have bought all of the above in mint condition for £28 or less, except the Chinon which was a kit lens with a previous film SLR.

Hope this gives you a starter.

Regards
David

Great info Gents , gives me something else to look for

Many Thanks

I have a superb SMC M 1:2.8 28mm for sale, David S has one and I know how much he likes his!

Mine's the F3.5 version Andrew, never tried the F2.8 but I would guess it's very good.

Regards
David

Darren - to give a beginners-eye view on what's been said above (and hence will almost certainly be corrected by the old hands) the mount Pentax use (i.e. the method by which lenses fit to their cameras) - called the K-mount - has remained pretty much the same since 1975. Hence any Pentax K-mount lens made since then will fit any Pentax K-mount camera body made since then - including the K-r we both have.

Bear in mind, however, that while the lens might fit - and work - with a modern body, older lenses might not have all the functionality you'd get in a modern lens, i.e. you might not get autofocus and/or auto aperture, so you need to know what you're doing - or be willing to research / experiment and find out. For instance, the 1980s 50mm prime (non-zoom) lens I've got needs aperture and focus to be set manually on the lens, but with a couple of tweaks in the K-r's menus, the camera can be set up to work out the exposure automatically. It might not be as convenient as a modern lens, but it cost me under £20, and is as sharp as modern lenses costing ten times that amount.

There's also an old 'universal' mounting standard called M42 (as David mentioned), that can be made to work with modern Pentaxes using an adaptor ring, with similar limitations as described above.

This backwards-compatibility is one of the main reasons I went with Pentax rather than Canon or Nikon (which have both changed their mounts several times in the last 30 years, limiting the availability of cheap, older lenses).

Right - Someone with a Clue will be along shortly to point out all the errors in the above explanation...

No errors as far as I can see - it all looks spot-on! Might be worth mentioning that if you get an adaptor ring to use an old M42 mount lens, make sure it is one that fits flush and does not protrude beyond the camera mount, otherwise you will lose the ability to focus on infinity.

Regards
David