Fabulous lens at a very good price - If I didn't already have one I'd snap it up... and I don't even have a K-1 (makes a great 'fast-ish 50' on APS-C)...

Gareth, I wouldn't sell mine for that little.

+1 for the whole post. I agree with pretty much all of it.

There are those who need very few lenses and prefer primes to zooms - they sling a camera over their shoulder and shoot the world (or their life) with a 28, 35 or 50mm on the front. Many Leica users work like this, small compact, fast, very good quality primes (expensive too but manageable if you only need a few lenses). I sometimes work like this with my P6x7 - body, prism, one prime (either 45, 55, or 90), I find one prime allows me to concentrate more on the image.

I can see this new 50 doing very well in that kind of scenario - with WR on a K-1, probably as close to indestructible as you can get. However, it is very expensive to spend much of it's time sitting in a bag because the camera has an f/2.8 zoom on the front or a huge heavy 15-30 by default, only making rare appearances. In this case an FA50 is likely to be a more sensible choice.

A similar discussion on legacy glass exists in the MF world when discussing 645 A/FA & 6x7 lenses on the D & Z. There are some weaker lenses (known to be weaker on film), but many are still very good as long as you work within sensible aperture limits (obviously you're not using the whole image circle).

John.

....and more compact lenses designed to get the best out of the sensor...

Excellent shots put into context by the comprehensive commentary, I've enjoyed them enormously.

Could we consider another section in this forum for 'photo essay' work such as this so they could be easily found and kept together?

John

Excellent shots Gareth.

Firmware updating needs to be as simple and reliable as possible and also needs to take account that you may need to recover 'corrupted' firmware. By pressing Menu when switching the camera on, the boot loader responsible for updating the firmware, can short-cut the boot-up sequence (if the firmware is corrupt there would be no way to boot it to select a menu option). By holding down a button, the boot-loader (often stored in read only memory) can jump straight to the upload routine and attempt to load the new firmware, irrespective of whether. the current firmware is corrupted or not.

John.

Hi All, just spotted this on Real Camera's website - Pentax LX & 50mm link. It's a while since I bought mine so hard to know about pricing (sounds reasonable to me - I recently paid half this for a CLA on mine). If I were buying an LX, one from a dealer would be my preference. I've bought various P6x7 gear off them in the past.

John.

I only use the genuine ones too (never tried a cheap but not inclined to either). There have been various issues reported with non-genuine 645 adapters for 6x7 lenses on the 645D & Z - why you'd risk a non-genuine adapter on an expensive camera is anyone's guess.

I really like the FA43 on film (I don't have a K-1), but it's too long for me on APS-C. I haven't used them, but I'm not a great fan of the concept of the DA Ltds - having manual film cameras means I need an aperture ring. I really like the dual purpose of the FA35/2 - a good focal length for film/FF and a fast-ish 50 on APS-C (useful if I travel with the K-5 and film).

+1, much less bulky than a DSLR and 28mm equivalent and produces excellent results.

I prefer the thickness of the 5p, less likely to slip I feel.

The MX service manual is available here link - looks very complicated but the exploded diagram shows the baseplate/battery compartment quite well.