To check the focal length of the lenses, zoom in to 28mm and 50mm on your zoom!

For me the 50mm is probably the natural first lens. Although of course it depends on what you like to shoot, but I think the very fast aperture of f1.7 will make owning the lens more worthwhile than the 28mm f3.5, which has the same maximum aperture as the kit lens at it's wide end. The 50mm f1.7 is over 3 stops faster than the kit lens at full zoom!

The fast f1.7 aperture of the 50mm will allow you to shoot images which look markedly different than the kit lens. Shooting at f1.7-f2 will allow you to blur the backgrounds of portraits very pleasingly.

If portraits and little details aren't really your thing and you just want a lens which is a bit smaller and has a nicer manual focus feel than the kit lens, the 28mm is a good choice.

Of the two versions Matt is talking about above, the original SMC Pentax version is slightly better than the M version. It's more expensive though.

Isn't the Canon eos mount? In which case I'm fairly sure it will take K glass. People modify the mirrors on their FF DSLRs to take Pentax lenses without the mirror hitting the lens, so using them with this beast should be a doddle.

To begin with, the A lenses are nice and easy. The A50 f1.7 is a very good starting point. A lenses will work just like your kit lens, with the exception of manual focus, and you need to input the focal length to help the shake reduction work.

M and K lenses are well worth trying too, as they are cheaper and sometimes more interesting, but the exposure is also manual and its slightly more complicated.

That's fine enjoy your Pen. Not my cup of tea since the DOF control is even more limited than APSC - not a consideration really for wide angle shots, but mainly for financial reasons I prefer to stick with just one camera system and it's Pentax!

"Only in America"....

Thanks all. I just happened to have my new lens on me so wanted to see that the shallow DOF was like. Perhaps the focus should have been slightly further back or the DOF increased.

The guy was in a world of his own but quite amiable, and agreed to have his picture taken when he asked me for some 'change for a packet of crisps'.

Arguably if you want to go down that road you could go for a compact which would be even cheaper / more discreet. But the 15mm is handy for those wide angle shots of opportunity when you want to shoot with your DSLR. It's also nice and light for walking etc.

From reading the discussion I had assumed the caption was actually superimposed on the image! I wouldn't worry too much about the thread title, it's just a way of peaking people's interest so they come and have a look.

It's a very nice shot Ted!

To be honest I'd *prefer* a decent viewfinder with split screen.

If you are shooting a still life or a landscape on a tripod, I can see how it would help, but in reality I find getting my thumb between my face and the camera and feeling for the right button and pressing it 3 times or whatever, to be much slower than focus/recompose.

One thing I can agree on - I never let the camera decide on the focus point.