Your advice to "go play" is the best course of action. It doesn't sound as though the existing line up of lenses necessitates staying with one brand.

K.

Lovely set of images with a distinct style. Well done.

I like the lady and the umbrella, nicely spotted image. The clouds and light on No. 5 are great although I might be tempted to try and tone down the bright white building on the right. Not keen on No. 6 but then I am infamous for my dislike of converging verticals.

Best wishes, Kris.

I like the unusual focus point of number 2, and number 1 is pretty good too.

I'm surprised how marked the grain is. My Neopan 1600 (RIP) images have less than that, although in this case I think the grain contributes to the atmosphere of the images.

You can mimic film quite closely with Silver Efex Pro but I still prefer to use the real thing. At the moment, I don't really have a choice as the K20D is off at the repairers.

K.

The former "Discoteca Fun Club" in Isaccea, Romania. Taken using my Pentax LX with the SMC Pentax 17mm fisheye lens and Rollei Retro 80S film.




Kris.

It is certainly one of my most used lenses. Small, light, sharp, bags of character, moderately fast... I don't like its plastic hood though as it gets knocked off too easily so I have just bought a metal one originally for the Tak 100/105.

K.

Unfortunately, Pentax reused the Takumar name at a later date with non-coated (?single coated) budget range k-mount lenses. The earlier M42 Takumars are generally excellent, the later k-mount lenses using the name are much less highly regarded although used with care they can produce good results. The main one to be aware of is the 135mm/f2.5 lens which comes in its original version (SMC Pentax 135mm) and is superb and the later not-SMC 135mm/f2.5 which is OK, but not in the same class. Ebay sellers are always hoping to catch the unwary by selling the latter (worth maybe £25) to those looking for the former (worth £80-£100).

K.

A) Yes the K 135/2.5 is a superb lens.
B) The SMC Takumar 135/2.5 is the same lens optically, just a different mount.
C) You can still have full manual control with the Tak.
D) With the K10D/K20D the green button manual metering is way off at anything other than wide open with the K series lens. I believe it is better with the more recent models. This leads to the need to use the "shoot, examine histogram, adjust, shoot and repeat" method of working. This is how I use my collection of K and M series lenses.
E) With the SMC Takumar you can either use manual metering, or more conveniently Av mode. Hold the camera with the lens nestled in your left hand as usual, and your thumb on the Auto/Manual switch. Focus wide open, close the aperture with your thumb, shoot, open the aperture again.

Simples.

K.

But lovely... Actually, if you're planning on using it on digital I'd go for the SMC Takumar 135mm f/2.5 lens (the proper M42 version rather than the cheapo uncoated K mount version) simply because the auto/manual switch makes it possible to use the lens in Av mode and is a tad more convenient than the K and M series lenses.

K.

Yup, especially as I have just sent my camera in for repair...

K.