Oh dear, I need to save up

O.K Folks,
Had my K20D for 6 days, fantastic camera, and the 16-45 Lens is superb, so much better than I am used to. Got a cosina 50mm F1.9 from ebay a few days ago, £20 actually a very good lens, sharp and good colours.
Next step, and reason for the post;
I need a good macro, don`t mind manual but it must fit onto the k20; do not want to bother with adaptors. Anybody got any ideas?
cheers
Dave.

Depends on what you want to photograph....the choice is bountiful

35DA ltd Macro
50D-FA macro
100D-FA macro
A selection of Sigmas 60, 105 or 180...
Tamron 90

that's just new.....

look around for used, good luck!

Hi Dave,

I also have K20D (for about a month already), it is fantastic. Also thought about a macro lens, but having not enough money I went for manual Pentax A (with aperture ring) 50mm F1.4 prime from eBay and macro tubes (bayonet, not screw-in) - also from there. Well, all manual, but inexpensive and with macro it is not that bad. The one I'd like to have is Pentax DFA 100mm F2.8 Macro lens

Hi Michal.
Am new to Pentax so trying to adopt a policy;
If I buy a new lens it has to have high IQ, hence my 16-45.
Current funds are enough for 1 new purchase this year, definately a zoom, possibly the Pentax DA 17-70 f4 AL. I do not think any zoom with a greater than 5 times range will offer the quality I want, of course I could be wrong.

Am happy to pay up to £50 on ebay for a prime, the way I see it it`s all experience, and if I do not like a particular lens then I can always re-sell.
Dave

No such luck for macro lenses I'm afraid they are specially designed lenses and not just your ordinairy prime lens. The field of focus is very flat and even for example. You won't find them cheap used

You have a 50mm prime so just use that with extension tubes or reverse it on your camera to do macro.

Just out of curiosity, if you have a DA 16-45 why do you want a DA 17-70 why didn't you bought that immediately with your camera? You might better look for a lens to go besides your DA 16-45 imho

Just out of curiosity, if you have a DA 16-45 why do you want a DA 17-70 why didn't you bought that immediately with your camera? You might better look for a lens to go besides your DA 16-45 imho[/quote]Good question Stefan, I don`t need the DA 17-70, was thinking about something else last night. What I want is something around 70 - 200. But for now I am going to try some macro. Some interesting threads on the forum about reversing rings extensions.
Dave

Reversing the 50mm would give you the best result, if you use with extension tubes the sharpeness and the light drops a bit off so you would need a longer exposur time. The problem with reversing is that you expose the rear element of the lens to the world and it wasn't design for that so be carefully not to scratch it!

With some long lenses you might be able to come already close to the subject, not so as with macro lens but still maybe close enough.

This done with the DA* 300mm, beautiful lens I must say! link
These are with the DA 55-300mm link link
As you can see you might be able to come close enough for what you want to do. The DA 55-300 is highly regarded here so take a look at that and it comes at a soft price. If you want some more quality the Tamron 70-200 or the DA* 50-135 might be something.

edit: typo
For the case you didn't know this site www.photozone.de

The good news is that there is basically no such thing as a bad macro prime, even the Cosina 100mm F3.5 was optically good, just plastic.

You should be able to pick up something old and manual for under £100 I would have thought, although I haven't looked in a while since I have a Tamron SP 90mm and have no need to look elsewhere until I can afford the DFA 100 F2.8

I got a Vivitar 100 f3.5 macro for about £40 which does 1:2 and I find it to be a very good lens. Not auto focus but I don't find that an issue but it does auto exposure OK.

Nice light plastic lens that seems to work very well. Ideally you'd get the supplementary lens that makes it 1:1 which I gather doesn't degrade the quality.

I believe they turn up on eBay from time to time.

Mike