old lens on new camera ?

Hi Just Joined. Went digital 4 years ago with Nikon Dx40 then D5000. Which I use and enjoy BUT I could never actually get around to selling my much loved Pentax kit. Now the question. How useful would my old lenses be if I purchased a pentax k30

They will still work I'm sure.

Which lenses are they?

Welcome to the forum. Your old lenses can certainly be used on the present cameras.

If they are FA, F or A lenses, they work fine. (only the FA & A lenses auto focus of course)

If they are M, K lenses, they can be used in manual mode.

If they are 42mm mount they need an adaptor and can be used in manual mode.

I have even used a 37mm to 42mm and a 42 to PK adaptor and have used my Asahiflex Takumars in my K5!

Welcome to the wonderful world of Pentax, where every lens Pentax made for their SLR's can be used by the latest models.

All pentax lenses can be used on current DSLR bodies. Anything from the A series or later will work fully as expected. The key is having an "A" setting on the aperture ring so that the camera can control the aperture.

Earlier bayonet K fit lenses can still be used manually with some limitations.

Screw thread lenses can also be used with the Adapter K, manually.

Very useful indeed. Old lenses are great.

Just spent a day wandering around York with an M50mm stuck on the front of my K-r and it works great just use manual mode and meter via the green button.Really enjoy using the old lenses.
Got a few sideways glances from the canikon lot though.

Envious sideways glances, surely

I use old lenses as much as new ones, particularly on the K-5 where they work just great.

Regards
David

doingthebobs. The A lenses don't autofocus. They do however auto aperture.
CHEERS Vic.

Thanks Vic.

I do know A lenses don't auto focus, its the typing I don't know how to do!

The A was meant to be an F but obviously the brain and fingers were thinking of something else at the time.

Quick question - do you get a focus confirm indication when using a manual focus lens?

Thats one of the things that really annoyed me on the Olympus range, I couldn't see any reason why it couldn't be done in the software and focusing by eye on a digital viewfinder is tricky.

By using the green hexagon in the viewfinder. When it's steady, the camera is telling you things are in focus.

If you have the camera set to MF that's it, job done. If you have the camera set to AF with a manual lens then the shutter will not release until focus confirmation is achieved. This means you can prefocus on an area, depress the shutter and the shutter will not release until something moves into that area and causes the system to register focus. This is "trap focus" and can be useful sometimes.

Of course Pentax DSLRs are also easy to focus by just looking and judging when the screen image is sharpest. Easy for me, but I've always used the plain screen to focus cameras. It's becoming a lost technique to some extent.

Whatever you do, make sure the dioptre correction is properly set. Point the camera at a blank wall or sky and adjust until the etched lines in the viewfinder are sharpest. Never try to adjust it whilst focusing on a subject with dsetail as the eye compensates. The point is to find the point where your eye is relaxed when looking at the screen.

What do you mean?

You were annoyed that you got a focus confirm indication when
using a manual focus lens on an Olympus camera?

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Thanks John. The focus trap sounds useful as well.

Algy, no I *didn't* get confim on the olympus bodies. What was even more annoying was that if I used non-olympus lenses with an adapter I could get focus confim (using the right adapter with a chip in it) but that wasn't possible with olympus MF lenses.

I find plain screen focusing inexact - my eyes aren't good enough. I could manage with a katz-eye but had problems with lowish light.

That said the K30 does have a nice bright screen.

I understand now

The Green Hexagon/Beep will work in a fashion with most lenses.
It's been there since the ME-F came out in 1981 so only 31 years
old and far too young an implementation for any Pentax user to
know much about it.... Can you come back in 20years?

From tests I've done recently it seems to need a lens that is very
good lens wide open to work accurately. The in camera micro-focus
adjustment has to be done for the lens first. I'm currently
trying a Pentax_A 50mm f/2.8 Macro lens and I think I have
it set right. The biggest problem is getting the lens exactly
in focus to set the adjustment. Even LV manual focus isn't
exact. I usually set it on a rack and move in about 5mm
increments until I get the best shot and then try to
match up the in camera micro-focus adjustment.

I'm working at 1M it might be OK at 3M without too much
fiddling.

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