other lenses

Hi there,
I have had an FA50 for a while now,and find the quality of images are incredible. My question is- are there any other lenses like this?
To be more specific, lenses not primarily designed for digital- which I'm guessing would be "future proof" by comparison.
Am I correct in thinking that the FA lens will work with full frame and that the DA lenses will not.An FA zoom would be good(am I confused?)
Thanks in advance.

Chris.

DA lenses are for digital and most have reduced image circles, so will vignette to a greater or lesser degree on film.

FA and F lenses are fully useable on digital, some will perform adequately but others will be superb. This depends on whether the original lens design produces an image that is sympathetic to the needs of the digital sensor design.

However, all are worth a try, sometimes at very low prices indeed.

I'm using an SMC Pentax-FA 100mm f2.8 Macro that is excellent on digital or film, for example.

Thanks John.


Chris

The original Limiteds work very well, and are wonderful lenses. 31mm, 43mm, and 77mm.

To be honest, I can't remember any Pentax lens being criticised for digital incompatibility (though that's probably my memory). Some of the cheaper zooms now seem rather soft, and should be avoided, but the good ones are OK. I'm happy with the performance of my 75-150, which dates from 1980.

All K-mount lenses will work on DSLRs, though metering is more difficult with K and M lenses. The D-FA lenses, as the name implies, are FA lenses designed in the digital area, so work fine on film too.

G

Many thanks for the expamded info George.

So far I haven't found any really bad examples of film lenses being no good for digital, although for very critical work some of the new digital series do have the edge. That's only subjective though and I'm not sure than anyone has done a really scientific evaluation of the best film lenses versus the best digital ones.

It might be interesting.