Old lenses

My Dad recently gave me his old pentax ME camera.I know now that they'll all work on my K100D.But does anyone know how good these lenses are?(I ask because i'm new to photography)
#1 SMC Pentax-M 1:1.7 50mm 3365294 Asashi opt.co.
#2 Bell and Howell 1:2.8 f=28mm
#3 Super Paragon PMC II Auto Tele Zoom 1:4.5 75-200mm
I think #3 was made by Photax.

Number one is very good.

G

As George says (by what he's written, and what he hasn't ) the 50mm is a great lens, and you should get good use from that one. The other two probably won't be quite as nice...

However, that's not to say they're not worth trying. The 28mm may well be fine, the zoom may be a bit more variable. I remember a shot I took at Portland Zoo in Oregon, when I was first starting out in photography. A Hanimex 80-200 was mounted on my Praktica MTL5, and I'd zoomed in on a wolf, which was looking straight at me. When I got the print back, the wolf, and his staring eyes, were sharp, and everything else seemed to be weird circular smear. It worked for that image, quite spooky, but not so good for family snaps.

So try your lenses, and see what they give you. If you can get some extension tubes, the 50mm is great for macro shots, which are great fun. I'm guessing you have an 18-55mm lens that came with your K100D? If so, you may find you don't have much need for the 28mm, but you never know.

Above all, have fun!

Dan

Hi thanks for the replies.
Yes I have the 18-55 that came with the camera.Also got the Tamron AF70-300mm Tele Macro that also came as part of the deal from where I bought it from.So thinking about it I have no use for any of the old lenses.
But thanks for the replies.very much appreciated.
But I might have use for the old Pentax lens as jus remembered it has a skylight lens that fits on the end of it.

You do have a use for the 50mm.

It is a much better lens than your two zooms, and great for portraits. It's also fast, so it's good for low light and also for pictures with narrow depth of field.

It's small, light, and discreet.

If you buy a 77mm you will have a better lens, but not hugely. Otherwise, you will find it very hard to improve on your dad's old Pentax 50mm.

G

Thankyou George I'll give it a go.

Hi Imp,

Just seen your 'signature', made me think there are plenty of people (thankfully very rarely on this board) that could have:

"I've been a photographer for a long time, so please excuse my ignorance"

Don't feel you need to apologise for learning, we all do it, all the time, and we all say or do things that may seem daft now and again. Just ask any questions that come to mind, someone will know the answer, but many more won't, and they'll all learn something too.

Just don't forget about, or even worse, get rid of, the 50mm lens!

Dan

Ok then here's a question about how the mm of lenses equates to the x10 etc on point and shoot.
I started with a Fuji S5,600,which if memory serves me right was a 10x zoom.So what mm would that have been?

38-380

That's what Google's for.

G

See, I said someone would know. And we've all learnt something.

Dan

The 10x zoom figure is simply the ratio between the minimum and maximum focal lengths that the zoom will cover. IE: Max/Min = 380/38 = 10.

The bigger the zoom ratio, the more the compromise. You will find that the better quality zoom lenses (for sharpness, colour, contrast, and flare control) have a zoom ratio limited to between 2x (12-24) and 4x (80-320). Many are only about 3x (70-210, 24-90, 16-45 etc). The new Sigma 50-500 stretches it to a whopping 10x. I think the Pentax offering having the widest zoom ratio is probably the 28-200 AL IF lens at just over 7x. Many users don't like that particular lens because its a bit soft at the long end but I like it as a general carry about lens.

Does that mean knowledge and thinking are dead? Will skool lessens in the future just consist of learning to use google?!

Who can say? My impression is that schools gave up teaching some time ago. They have now been replaced by Wikipedia.

G

I don't think that thinking and knowledge are dead, however, considering that nowadays you are continuously learning I would hope that schools would spend some more time on teaching how to learn. There are many ways how to learn and some are more suitable for one person than others (but these people would learn easier using another method).

I don't remember being taught any learning method (but then, I'm an old fart and schools might have changed although I haven't heard anything about teaching how to learn at school).

BTW: Even Google searches do work better with correct spelling...

Prieni