Free Pentax kit from the in-laws... What to do?

[raid]

If you have a Canon FD body, that adaptor works well and the Pentax lens does focus to infinity.

Yes, I have used the SMC 85/1.8 as an alternative to an FD lens on a Canon A1. Years later I found out that this lens was pricey. I was using it in place of buying an FD lens. I recall using closed aperture metering and setting the camera to aperture priority.

 

[Benjamin Marks]

I got into photography with a Pentax K1000 and a 50/1.7 lens. This was in about 1984. My dad had had a Praktica and I had borrowed a Nikon FE from a friend at some point before that, but the K1000 was really my first real camera. Its main attraction was that it was inexpensive compared to many of the other "entry level" cameras. I was so new to photography that I didn't even know you could buy a used camera. When I went to "upgrade" in about 1989, the LX was the natural choice because I could keep all of my lenses. I loved both of those cameras as much as I loved photography, so my appraisal of them is fully, completely, utterly clouded by sentiment. My memory is that at the time Pentax had a wide variety of lenses, but that Nikons generally had a deeper bench (e.g. a 28/2.8 and a 28/2) and that there were more fast Nikkors than Pentaxes (e.g. the Pentax 35/1.4 was essentially un-ownable). The Pentax winders didn't have as much oomph as their Nikon counterparts either.

I was working at a small newspaper in a country with no Pentax distributor when the rewind crank fell off my LX. After a couple of weeks of needing a needle-nose pliers to open the camera in various closets and darkrooms, I traded in all my Pentax gear for a Nikon F4 and 50/1.4 and mostly never looked back. (I did buy another LX years later, and then sold it off again --crazy).

Now I have one thread-mount body and about a dozen lenses, all of which were picked up at ridiculously low prices. The 35/2, 50/1.4, and 85/1.9 are particular favorites. The new trend in mirrorless cameras allows all of these lenses to be used on digital bodies and I can think of no better lenses at these prices, except maybe the Konica Hexar AR lenses.

 

[sweathog]

It may be my imagination, but didn't Pentax make a lovely 'radioactive' 50/1.4?

I've just gone through my flickr account and found the following which I took with a Spotmatic F using the very lens I thought I was thinking of, lent to me by a friend.

At The Bar by Tom Swanborough-Nilson, on Flickr

Here's a link to some blah blah about it on another forum: http://www.pentaxforums.com/lensreviews/SMC-S-M-C-Super-Takumar-50mm-F1.4.html

Sorry if this has already been mentioned, I must admit it was a small case of tl;dr.

 

[raid]

Some fast lenses had rare earth or Thorium in some of the glass elements. Users of such Takumar 50/1.4 lenses often remove the yellow layers by exposure to sunlight UV. Others, leave it on the lens for a "yellow filter" effect for B&W.

 

[rkm]

Thanks everyone for your responses. I'm on holidays right now and have already put a roll of HP5 through the SL, and will develop it when I get home. I used the light meter in my phone but pretty much was confined to f8-f11 in the Aussie sun.

The camera seemed fine, but the advance lever seems a bit flimsy compared to my Nikons. The Takumar 55/2 seems a much better build than the camera itself.

If I like the look that the lens gives, my next question would be: what's the best quality M42 mount camera body out there?

Alternately, (and this is a bit of a newbie question) if I were to start looking at digital camera bodies to mount these old lenses, how sensible is that? Is infinity focus a problem with adaptors as it is on film bodies?

In other news, my brother in law turned up today and gave me a Spotmatic SP 1000 that's a bit of a beater, and a Sigma 35-70 zoom, and Hanimex 200mm. It's raining camera stuff here.

 

[BW400CN]

If you would like to use these lenses digital think about the Sony NEX!
Infinity wouldn´t be a problem!
Canon EOS would also ba an alternative - as I know a lot of people use M42 on Canon DSLR - infinity shouldn´t be a problem.

 

[tunalegs]

I think the reason Pentax fell from favor as a professional camera was that they clung to the M42 mount for too long. The M42 mount was basically outdated from the moment Topcon introduced fully coupled open aperture TTL metering in 1963. The Spotmatic F was too little (far) too late, people were moving on and Pentax was obviously behind the curve. Even if it had open aperture metering, who cared? It was M42 and M42 was dead as a doornail except on Fujicas and el-cheapo Petris and Prakticas. The fact that M42 came be known as "Pentax screw mount" shows how strongly Pentax was associated with M42, and I feel that didn't do them any favors.

 

[rkm]

So, maybe these lenses make the most sense on a meterless camera? If you're going to be backward, you may as well go all the way?