I bought in to the Pentax system because of the backward compatibility of thier lenses. I dont earn a lot and the purchase of my K10d 18 months ago took me 3 years to save up for (honest)before that i had a secondhand mzs with a couple of manual lenses and dreamt of owning an *ist. whilst saving up for a pentax slr digital and since i have trawled ebay and picked up a number of manual lenses for sensible prices.

These Manual lenses are great for teaching you how to use your camera to account for exposure errors etc that some of the older lenses can cause and learn how to account for spot metering. you will miss some shots because they are slower to use but i mainly take pictures whilst out walking the dogs in the countryside at a leasurly pace.

The main thing/advice i would give is not to get carried away and pay too much on ebay. The bread and butter Pentax 28mm, 35mm, 50mm, 55mm, 135mm, 200mm and various zooms are always appearing on a daily basis and will continue to do so as people clear out thier collections.

Some go for silly money wheras a little research will pull up bargains e.g. the m50 f2 is a fine little lens and can often be picked up for under £10 in pristine condition compared to the 1.7 which is ofen £30 - 40 and the A50mm F1.7 is around the £45 mark. The m75 -150 F4 is also a good performer and can be bought for under £20, the K55 1.8 is nice at around £40 - 50.

Often lens dealers etc on ebay will try to ask for silly money but remember another one will be just around the corner. I have been watching then on ebay for years and they just keep coming around. Now some do command a premium like the A 50mm F1.2, I have only ever seen one and it just ended at £311 pounds - if you are a pro or have the money then perhaps its worth it but for that kind of money you could get quite a nice wide variety of lenses if you are patient. I would like a 50mm F1.4 and they tend to go for around £65 so i will need to save for a couple of months.

I tend to go for a common lens put in a sensible price and then forget it - you could win it for a tenner or you get outbid and just wait 48 hours for the next one to come round. e.g this evening someone got a nice m42 takumer 55 1.8 for 9.78 - i bid up to £9 but lost it and was not willing to pay more as i allready have one and dont need/want to run up the price for the current bidder.

Fix a sensible price and dont get run up - no dont even get tempted to put another bid in just turn off ebay and leave it - another one will be along soon or you have a good lens at a sensible price - then enjoy
You can also chuckle as you watch some people pay silly money as they get in to a bidding war.

cheers

will

sorry for the long post

I like the first one and agree that the blow out looks nice in the overall composition - perhaps the second would be improved with a shallower depth of field to help isolate the main subject?

1st for me - very nice

Thanks for the comments - I didnt use a flash - the setting sun was providing a nice light but there was a breeze. I might look in to the 35 and 50 mm as well but that wont help the lba

I got this today from ebay for £50 after seeing hefty1's comments on its quality - i took it out for a quick test this evening as we had a bit of sunshine and i think it performs very well - the pics have had no processing just a bit of cropping but I think the lens reproduces the colours very well and was a bargain buy. Thanks for the tip hefty1

I imagine this looks nice on a christmas card etc and good room for text so probobly a good stock photo etc I like it

I got the pentax ccd sensor cleaning kit from srs microsystems when it was a lot cheaper - at the time it was around £28 but i see that pentax have virtually doubled the price!. i still think its worth the money as it does an excellent job and i can recommend it.

Thanks for the constructive comments and the points about white balance -The picture was straight out of the camera with no processing apart from the tight crop due to the many distractions around the image.

A frosty topped post taken sunday morning K10D A50MM F1.7 - My first ever go at a competition but i thought what the hell give it a go

Thanks for the re-assurance about the specs of dust - I always keep both caps on when the lenses are off the camera. I can see how zooming in and out might suck stuff in - I had not really thought about it before