SUN lenses

Has anybody got any opinions on these lenses.

Have an opportunity to purchase a 75-200mm f/4.5 one for my KX and would like to know if they are any good?

I have a very small budget so i am not expecting anything amazing just a good budget lens.

Thanks Ross.

I suspect they may be another one of the generic brands which did the rounds in the '80s. If you want a good budget lens then save your money and try to get hold of one of the better Pentax autofocus zooms in that focal range - try the Pentax-F 70-210mm, Pentax-F 80-200mm, or the current DA 50-200mm.

Stupidly cheap generic lenses can be fun, but I'm guessing you're starting from scratch and trying to build a kit, in which case you really want a lens you can rely on rather than something that's fun to fiddle around with.

If you pay more than 5 pounds you will be ripped off the 135-2.8 that cost me $12 came into two pieces first time the hood was extended.

I had another one years ago,can`t remember the size it was very soft as well

They were very soft to the extent that they were unusable.see if you can take a few shots with it to form your own opinion,it might be OK but don`t think that it will.

Sun zooms were one of the few affordable zooms in the early 70's.
I never used one because I had an expensive Takumar zoom. I wouldn't
expect much of them in terms of quality. They disappeared after that.

Thanks very much for your responses everyone, have saved me some cash there.
Yes Dangermouse you are correct i am building up a lens collection and i think i will take your advice and save for some better lenes. 2 things, 1, what are the pentax f you quote above? is it a different fitting etc? 2, I have seen reviews on the DA lenses and the 70-300mm lens is a lot better then the 70-200mm although more expensive. As a beginner would i notice the difference? and is the 70-300mm worth the extra money?

Thanks again, Ross

Hi Ross

I have no experience of the lenses mentioned above but I do use a few cheap primes, namely the Tokina RMC f5.5 300mm £16, NPS 400mm F5.9 £29.99 and Vivitar 28mm F2.8 about £20 I think, all are very good in my opinion in terms of cost against quality - the results are on my flickr page - judge for yourself in terms of lens quality as the artistic merit is lacking .

There are users on here who use manual focus zooms that are cheap and they get some excellent results, one example is Bwlchmawr (Andrew) - just go check out his gallery for examples of what can be achieved.

There are others but my memory is not as good as maybe it should be

Regards


Stu.

Stuey thats great thankyou. I have been looking for a 24mm lens to but there are so many out there its hard to know which are good.
I will look out for a vivitar 28mm and see how i get on.

Ross.

Hi Ross

When looking for a 28mm f2.8 vivitar try to find one with the serial number that begins with 28 as these I believe are the better ones

Pentax-F is the series, they're K mount and will work on your K-x just like the 18-55mm does.

A quick runthrough of the Pentax lens "series"

SMC Pentax (sometimes called K series) - manual focus, manual aperture, the original 1975-77 range which were superbly made

SMC Pentax-M (M series) - functions same as the K series but smaller and lighter. More commonly available as they were made for longer

SMC Pentax-A - still manual focus but now has an "A" position on the aperture for use with suitable bodies, if used with your K-x these will work like a current lens but with manual focus only

SMC Pentax-F - the first standard Pentax AF lenses, work just like the current ones when aperture is set to "A"

SMC Pentax-FA/FA-J - same functionality, FA-J lenses lack an aperture ring which isn't a problem with the K-x

SMC Pentax-DA/DA-L - the current lenses like your 18-55mm

Try to stick to Pentax-F or later for now, earlier lenses will fit and work but with limitations (you have to use stop-down metering with anything earlier than the A series, and the A series themselves while able to work with all exposure modes are manual focus).