Author Topic: PENTAX old cheap but good lens fro micro? any? (Read 5480 times)

hali · « **on:** November 26, 2008, 13:09 »

I was in Mood site a moment ago and they have a good section advising that we can save money and yet have good lens for shooting Macro and Mid stock for A2 and above. They picked out a couple of older Nikon and Canon lenses and said you can pick them up at cheap prices. And they said, these are perfect for stock, as they are sharper than the new zoom that comes with the new cameras.

I just got my Pentax K20D and I was thinking of buying a couple of lenses,
but of course, I am now broke, until I pay off my new K20D, ha!ha!...

But I think I can afford a few dollars for an old lens 50 mm, or 100 mm
macro , like Mood says for Nikon, sub 50 quid.
Is there something like that for pentax too, that I can look for.

I have a new part-time job and I get employees discount. and they sell Pentax lenses too. So maybe I can pick up a few of their older lenses that are sitting in demo.
Any expert on Pentax here? It doesn't have to be fully automatic.
Even with my Pentax K20D with all the auto modes, I still shoot product shots
in Manual.

Thank in advance. I know there are some expert in Pentax here. So fire away!

CofkoCof · « **Reply #1 on:** November 26, 2008, 13:13 »

You could get m42 lenses since pentax offers focus confirmation on those manual lenses. You just need m42 adapter.

hali · « **Reply #2 on:** November 26, 2008, 13:18 »

Quote from: CofkoCof on November 26, 2008, 13:13

You could get m42 lenses since pentax offers focus confirmation on those manual lenses. You just need m42 adapter.

awesome, i will check into that. and what lens do you think i should look for, CofkoCof?

grp_photo · « **Reply #3 on:** November 26, 2008, 14:12 »

The backward compatibility with Pentax is unbeatable you can use any lens made from 1976 onwards without an adapter on your Pentax K20D and of course you can even use M42-lenses with an adapter as CofkoCof noted. But as you have such an incredible collection of K-Mount lenses to choose from i think there is really no point in using a M42-lens with an adapter.
You can get 50mm A-Lenses very cheap second-hand and you have the advantage that you can use it in shutter priority and programm-mode too. The older K- and M-Lenses only support aperture priority and manual. With the F-, FA-, FAJ- and DA-Lenses you have all exposure modes and Autofocus avaible.
As mentioned in the other thread

a must read for all Pentaxowners:
the K-Mount page http://kmp.bdimitrov.de/
Directl link to lens section http://kmp.bdimitrov.de/lenses/index.html

hali · « **Reply #4 on:** November 26, 2008, 14:48 »

thanks grp_photo, i will go hunting for that 50mm A lens.
i should check out those links too. i know it can be too technical for some,
i will look it up one day when my brain's smarter than usual

maybe i will look for some one with a pentax system and make a trade for my olympus e300 . it could be a good trade for both of us if they have enough lenses
for my new pentax. i will keep you in touch so i know if it's wise trade or not.
good help here as always.

Phil · « **Reply #5 on:** November 27, 2008, 20:48 »

go have a look at pentaxforums.com and the pentax section of dpreview (you may want to do some searches though).

there are some bargains such as older sigma 24mm, certain model (out of 6?) vivtar 28mm, some sears 135mm.

But IMHO 2nd k mount glass is often more expensive than 2nd hand nikon / canon glass as there is less of it and more people wanting it. again IMHO very often the newer lenses are better than a lot of the older cheaper lenses (look at tamron sp line etc (a 17-50 and 70-200 goes a long way), especially if you want zooms, many older zooms aren't real great). Older lenses that are very good are often worth huge amounts and often more expensive than new glass ie 2nd hand fa85 costs more than new fa77 and fa200 macro's sell over US$2000 (of course you are talking extremely nice glass

Phil

hali · « **Reply #6 on:** November 27, 2008, 22:26 »

thanks Phil.
yes, cost is important to me at this stage. as i said, i just charged my card for this new pentax, so i wont have too much money to spend. but i do want a better lens thant he wide angle zoom that came with it. it's workable, you get much better images with it, obviously at 14 MP. and i use the sweet spot , critical aperture for as sharp as i can get.
but it would be nice to use more aperture choices with a prime lense eg. like you all mention 50mm. instead of the zoom, as i am sure the results would be even better.

crazychristina · « **Reply #7 on:** November 27, 2008, 23:19 »

I bought a Super Takumar 50mm f/1.4 on ebay a while back - awesome lens, but does need the adapter. When that was made Pentax was competing with Zeiss, and sold lenses like that at a loss for promotional purposes.