Which legacy lenses for K1?

I have just ordered a K1 (for my birthday present from the whole family)am interested to know who has found which legacy glass performs well ...particularly any fa zooms or 3rd party zooms...

There's probably still limited knowledge on this one, but I've been looking for a 20-35mm f/4 FA lens and perhaps the 20mm f/2.8 as starting points. There's also the MF Samyang 14mm f/2.8 that is fairly inexpensive and just might be worth having a go with.

Hi John,

Have you not tried any legacy glass on yours yet?

I know i have have FA 50mm F1.4 , and a sigma 50-500mm , the f 35-70 and some possibles like the 28-300 sigma aspherical makro...and the 28mm Pentax M ...

all my other lenses re guesswork at best..hoping my sigma 10-20 will work on full frame as the ff equivalent is expensive...

Regretting selling my Sigma 28-70...

I used the 50mm f/1.4 FA for the ePHOTOzine review and was pleased with that. The 43mm f/1.9 Limited that I have produces nice images too, but the edge performance of my sample is a bit weak until stopped down. The 75-300mm FA J lens, avaialble very cheaply from SRS, is actually not at all bad and worth its £119 price tag.

I think the standard and telephoto lenses should be fine, but I do need to find and try some wide angles. As they won't be telecentric designs it may be they won't reach the standards of say the new 15-30mm, but some may be usable.

Not legacy lenses but Laowa have a FF 15mm macro and are introducing a 12mm f4 lens shortly; both are manual focus available in K-mount and I will be interested to see what the 12mm lens will cost.

I already have the FA 80-320 which is good on K3 at least as good as the DA 55-300.
Will consider 1 new lens but think it will be the sigma 24-70 f2.8 much cheaper than the pentax one....

My favourite from the film era was the Pentax 24-50mm f/4 either 'A' or 'F'. They are as sharp at 50mm f/4 as any of the 50mm primes.

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I've tried several zooms out but not done any proper testing. After decades of shooting slide film I tend to frame my images quite tightly. This leaves me little crop room to remove edges / corners. The good high iso performance of the K-1 means there is plenty scope to stop down to get the best out of a lens and still retain a good shutter speed.

My FA20-35 corners still struggle at 20mm f11. This is a pity because the lens is sharp in the centre, has good contrast as well as being light and compact.

My F35-70 seems to work quite well. Nice and compact albeit limited zoom range.

My Tamron 17-35 2.8/4 is quite sharp over most of the frame even at large apertures. You need to stop down to f11 at 17mm to get usable corners. Even then the extreme corners haven't come good but area concerned is small enough that a typical print aspect ratio crop removes it. This lens is not too heavy (440g) and weighs the same as the DFA 28-105.

My FA*28-70 doesn't disappoint. I held off getting the DFA24-70 with the K-1 so I could check it out first. I've had this lens for many years and I'm sure the DFA24-70 is probably the better lens to buy especially given the price of a used FA*. The lens weighs about the same as the DFA24-70 (800g) and I find it a bit of a beast to carry with the K-1 on a neck strap. It was fine with the lighter MZ-S.

Weight is the issue I've found with the K-1. The body is a bit heavier than say a K-3. On its own this is ok but add an heavy zoom lens and the outfit weight becomes significant for me at least as a walk around option. This has resulted in me getting the DFA28-105. Lighter primes with their bright apertures are a joy to use on the K-1.

I've had my K-1 for a couple of months and I´m glad I got the FA*28-70/2.8 as a zoom lens for it after shooting a Tamron 24-135 with it at first. The FA* is just good.
I compared it with my A 35-105/3.5 which is a good manual focusing lens but the FA* performs better and of course easier to use. I´m actually looking for the FA* 80-200/2.8 also. The screw drive autofocus seems bullet proof which might be the reason I´m not looking for a SDM-lens.
The FA 31/1.8 is great on the K-1, changing from a "normal" on the K5 to a wide angle on the K-1.
Speaking of wides... How cool was it to hook the old A 15/3.5 on the K-1 to get that really wide FOV again?!

Dont wether its considered legacy or not

The FA 43mm is likely to be a good experience on FF though

Only expensive lens I've bought for the K-1 is the DFA 150-450, although I bought the Tamron 70-200 with it in mind. Happy with my Sigma 24-70 EX DG Macro. Other than that I'm using DA lenses. The non expensive lens (£28 incl postage) I have just bought is a MF Sigma Super Wide II 24mm, though Haven't taken it out yet.

Though not 'legacy' in the real sense, the Samyang manual focus options are a compelling choice for K1 users ..... perhaps not so much the longer ones (eg 85 / 135mm), but certainly the wider ones. I don't think manual focus is such a concern with wide angles, and the sort of landscape and architecture stuff I would be taking with them suits the manual focus approach anyway.

I'm thinking specifically of the 14mm, and now the new 24mm F3.5 Tilt Shift ..... this is something I would really be looking at when I get a K1, or K1 successor ...... link

With the 14mm, while for some subjects the distortions would prove too difficult, I imagine that with the high quality optical performance if offers, plus the resolution of the K1, it would be easily possible to happily crop into the images .... I mean frame wide, and crop to achieve field of views equivalent from 15mm through to about 18mm without significant quality loss .. ? (So its almost like having a 14-18mm zoom).

For me, I'm thinking now that I have a D FA 28-105, the 14mm plus 24 tilt shift would probably meed most needs.

I'm with you on the tilt/shift, it's been in my sights for a while now. There was one on special offer a while ago but I couldn't do it at the time so I live in hope of another sometime!
Regarding lens distortion I was surprised how easy and effectively this can be done in Lightroom; it deals with the 10-17mm with no problems although there is loss from cropping.

I've been looking at the Samyang 14mm f/2.8 with interest as well. There are now some excellent third party lenses about, all aiming for high quality and/or niche applications. The market is very exciting at the moment, with plenty of choice available.

I have the Samyang 12mm f2.0 for the Fuji System and I have to say it's incredibly well built for the price.