Price for a Pentax SMC - F 50mm 1:1.7 ???

Pete,

Can't recommend an older landscape lens. Because they were designed for 35mm and not APS-C digital they tend to be larger and more expensive - even second hand! It's down to the 16-45.

However, as I said in the PM to you, a lot comes down to controlling the light. So, a tripod and set of Cokin P (or even the smaller A) ND Grads with your 18-55 should produce some excellent landscape images.

Portraiture - as I said in the PM - the 50mm/f1.4 is one of my favourites. The f1.7 is good, but the f1.4 has a different quality to the image. Not sharper... just different. But, even second hand you're looking at around £100.

The trouble is, by the time you've bought and tried all these older lenses, you'll find you've spent the same as a 16-45 anyway And there's nothing that I've seen that can touch the 16-45 at that price point

Matt

(Pete - thanks for the comment! There are plenty of images on my ePhotozine account Link is from my website, but it's the same username as here)

Pete, I'm a little disappointed that you asked for some idea of prices, after I went to the trouble of including the following in one of your earlier threads - re: the A series F2

..... this was the cheapest of the 50mm lenses because it had the smallest maximum aperture but is still a very good performer.
I picked one up for £10 a few years ago but because genuine Pentax lenses have grown in popularity recently, you probably wont find one that cheap. I certainly wouldn't pay too much more though because you might strike it lucky elsewhere and bag yourself an F1.7 (F1.4 versions tend to be rather costly these days - often in excess of £60).
The F1.7 is the one to go for as it does perform slightly better than the F2, as well as being 'faster'.

Consider the price carefully because the F2 should be less than £20, the F1.7 less than £50 and the F or FA series (auto-focus) F1.7 between £50-£75.

Those are the figures I'd be looking for, although they can go for really silly prices!

So you managed to get an SMC-F 1.7 for £79, a tad high in my opinion but I've known them to go for quite a bit more.

AF is nice but you'll pay a premium for the luxury, so don't forget to look for MF wide-angles and telephotos but as Matt said, they were designed for 35mm cameras and even a 24mm lens is hardly wide-angle at all on a K10D.
MF telephotos of 125mm or 135mm and even 200mm are often available quite cheaply. They are usually very good performers because they are optically quite simple and easy to produce, have reasonably wide maximum apertures and have an even greater 'reach' on a DSLR because of the 1.5x crop factor ie. a 200mm lens on the K10D is equivalent to a 300mm lens on a 35mm film camera.

Sorry Kimbo in regards to your above comment.

I think the F and FA lens seem quite few and far between on ebay so they must be good.

The problem with ebay as we all know is if you set your sight on a paying a particular price no more than £60, undoubtedly someone will pay more and beat the price on the final bid. In which case you could be trying forever to get what you want.

Thanks for the above advise.

Pete

You're quite right Pete, not so many 50mm lenses are appearing these days and you certainly didn't pay a bad price for one of the finest standard lenses ever produced.

Ebay is an excellent source (I've only made a few disappointing purchases over the years) but for lenses, don't be too specific in your searches. I mean, don't restrict yourself to the lens only section and tick the 'include the description' box.
Many sellers split their kit into seperate lots but quite a few sell complete outfits. You might not be interested in an old SFX or SF7 but there might be lenses and accessories that would cost you more if you bought them seperately.

A while ago, I got myself an SFXn and SMC-F 1.7 (both in excellent condition) for £58, which if I remember correctly was the opening bid plus p+p.
I can only assume that potential buyers were put off because they didn't want the camera

Just to annoy people...

I got my SMCF 50 1.4 a few years ago as part of a 'job lot' with an SF7 and Sigma 400 5.6 (AF but sadly not the apo one - however I got a few good pics out of it), a Sigma AF 70-200 of no merit and the SMC F 28-80 for £200. I was only intersted in the 50 and the 400 so I sold the 70-200 on ebay for about 30 quid, the camera and the 28-80 to a friend for a very reasonable £70. Later I sold the Sigma 400 on ebay (after acquiring a 170-500) and got £90 so my 50 1.4 cost me a tenner...

Blimey .....and I thought mine was 'a bit of a result'

result!

I once bought an SFX with 35-70 and 70-210 SMC-F lenses for £70, then sold the two lenses for a combined total of £80. My SFX cost me -£10, which I thought was pretty good, I used it for 8 months and then sold it for £20 after picking up a Z50p so my total cost of ownership for the SFX was -£30.

Actually I got a SMC F 35-135 for -£30, bundled with another SF7 and an AF400 FTZ flash - though I guess I did have to buy a battery for the camera and give it a field test with a roll of transparency film so I could sell it as fully functional, so I ought to factor in another £15. Bundle cost £70. I sold the flash for that and the body for £30.

I've stil got the 35-135 but having now acquired the 50-200 it is somewhat redundant so it may appear on ebay in due course. Not a great lens but perfectly servicable.

what is the difference between these two lenses ?

SMC-M 50 1.7

SMC-A 50 1.7

???

The moral here is buy an SFX....never thought of that....

The M series lens has no A setting on the aperture ring and also no electrical contacts.

The A lens will be fully compatible with the DSLRs, but only manual focus of course.

sorry for the "half"-trying to steal this thread, have just placed a bid on a SMC-A already having a -M, cause I thought the -A was autofocus ???

Payd too muck for my -M, because I live i DK... so the market is very small... think I payed 50 dollars for my -M.

(it would be the same price uf i bought i Cheap in uk og us and have i send here )

You need a SMC Pentax-F, SMC Pentax-FA, SMC Pentax-DA, SMC Pentax-D-FA lens if you need auto-focus.