K10D owners?

ChrisN said:
I've not tried that one (send it over!) but I have used a Zenit Helios-44M, which is a 58/2 - would it be a copy of the Zeiss? The Helios works very nicely (especially for the $10 I paid for it!).
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Yes, as far as I know the Helios 44M is the Russian copy of the Biotar.

Hmmm, does your Helios have an all around metal rear-element "guard" that portrudes into the body beyond the screw? I've read that the Biotar has this and it sticks far enough to catch the Spotmatic mirror on the way down after a shot.

Quality wise, this Biotar produces tasty pictures 🙂
 
shadowfox said:
... does your Helios have an all around metal rear-element "guard" that portrudes into the body beyond the screw?
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No - nothing like that on the Helios. No problems with it on a Spotmatic body I have or on the K-mount cameras. I like it on the digital because I can leave the shutter stopped down and use the camera in aperture-priority mode.

Damn - now I want to play with it! I've just packed away all but the bare essentials - we have carpet-layers coming in the next few days to put new carpet in the house, and everything had to be packed up!
 
i'm thinking about buying a K100D, but it seems pentax doesn't do many lenses in KAF mount? since that's a pentax DSLR thread, i'd like a bit of help for making my mind between a K100D with an EOS350, especially for photo quality?
 
Stephane - what lenses do you seek?

Pentax has a small range of truly superlative prime lenses, the 31mm, 43mm and 77mm "Limited" lenses, which are superbly crafted manual/auto-focus lenses with metal bodies, and brilliant optics.

Then there is the modern pancake lenses, the 21mm and 70mm, which are very compact.

Also the 'conventional' range of modern auto-focus lenses of which I have the 35/2 and 50/1.4. At the wide end they also do a 14/2.8.

I'm less interested in zoom lenses, but there seems to be an adequate range of those, too, from Pentax.

Don't forget that the millions of M42 screw-mount lenses out there, ancient and modern, can all be used with Pentax SLR, with stop-down metering available in some bodies.

Then add in the lenses made by Tamron and Sigma, and let's not forget the full range of the new Zeiss (manual-focus) SLR lenses is available in K-mount.

The range perhaps does lack at the extreme long/fast end of the spectrum, if that is your need.


Some resources:

Pentax lens roadmap. http://www.digital.pentax.co.jp/en/lens/roadmap.pdf

Zeiss SLR lenses. http://www.zeiss.com/photo (click on "SLR lenses")

Pentax website. http://www.pentaximaging.com/products/cameras/lenses/digital_35mm/

Bojidar Dimitrov's site. http://www.bdimitrov.de/kmp/


Cheers!
 
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Welsh_Italian said:
The cheap and nasty ones (that might not allow infinity focus) look like the M42-EOS adapters - they have a large flange around them.

The useful adapters don't have this flange and are smaller. As for telling after-market useful adapters from genuine Pentax ones, I'm not sure but there's a comparison here http://techtheman.blogspot.com/2007/09/pentax-m42-adapters.html

The genuine adapters don't need a tool to retrieve them - just use your fingernail to move the spring, and out it turns! Apparently some people have difficulties in getting the after-market ones out to begin with.
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Thanks! I just got me me from GoShotCamera on ebay (a pretty randomly selected seller) and the adapter works like a charm, way cool 🙂
 
Go and feel and look at all the other DSLRs in the same price range (I have). No question the build quality of the Pentax is better. It is weather proof, I think it has a metal body vs plastic, 2 million lens will fit it. They (Pentax) followed the tech happy marketers with just as many dumb features, but any one of them will have that. If you are not married to another lens group check it out. My K10d is great. As with all digital cameras you do have to pick your images. You can't take high contrast shots.
 
Chris,
thanks for you link! I couldn't find the pentax lens line, and it seems those lenses are pretty unexpensive! 250$ for a 1.4/50 is nothing at all compared to a canon or nikon 50/1.4... That kind of help me decide what to choose!
Btw, do you think a 16mm cine lens would work on a DSLR? Angenieux or Taylor-Hobson produced very fine lense, and the image circle could be wide enough for an APS-C sensor?
 
Is there an adapter to use Leica R lenses on Pentax bodies? Registration-wise it should be OK, but I've never seen one.
 
rolliestef, don't get too excited about prices. B&H has the 50mm f1.4 Pentax $60 cheaper than the Nikon, but I recently bought a Pentax 35mm f2.0 for the same price as the Nikon and a Pentax 20mm f2.8 for $50 more than the Nikon.
 
Some Advice (related to thread) sought

Some Advice (related to thread) sought

Not to hijack this thread, but I just picked up a *ist DS and have no K-mount lenses for it - any suggestions for where beside 'bay to pick up some - any recommendations? I'd wished I'd read about the M42 converter before picking up a flanged one...

Also any opinions on the 18-55mm DA kit lens?

Cheers,
-Amit
 
The DS is one of the better 6MP cameras as it has a proper pentprism unlike the later models which have a pentmirror. The 18-55 is not bad but then again is not a star performer. The 16-45 is much better. As far a K mount lenses are concerned, any of them will work with the DS. However, the first series (sometimes known as the K series) and the M series can only be used in manual mode with a form of stop down metering. Any of the A series lenses or later including all the F and FA series work perfectly as well as the DA digital ones.

Best advice for usability is to stick with the A series and later.

Kim

anandi said:
Not to hijack this thread, but I just picked up a *ist DS and have no K-mount lenses for it - any suggestions for where beside 'bay to pick up some - any recommendations? I'd wished I'd read about the M42 converter before picking up a flanged one...

Also any opinions on the 18-55mm DA kit lens?

Cheers,
-Amit
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check one of the posts on the first page. A pentax adapter costs about 22$.
My K100D is arriving at the end of the week - can't wait! Got it nearly new (was bought by previous owner in march, he replaces it w/ a D200) for 420€ (550$) with two lenses, a polarizer and 2 1GB SD card... will post pics (my camera collection) as soon as I'm getting it!
 
FYI,
The adapter is out of stock at Vistek and not available at GoShotCamera anymore either 🙁. I guess it's going to be a hunt for these.

Cheers,
-Amit
 
Hi,
The Pentax User site in the UK has the original Pentax ones for sale new. http://www.ephotozine.com/shop/cat_21_46.html
I would imagine others official Pentax sites should have them as well.

Henry's in Canada have them for $25 CAD http://www.henrys.com/webapp/wcs/st...artmentId=10407&categoryId=10412&itemID=37809

B+H have a generic one for $15 http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/97561-REG/General_Brand__Pentax_K_Body_to_Universal.html

Kim


anandi said:
FYI,
The adapter is out of stock at Vistek and not available at GoShotCamera anymore either 🙁. I guess it's going to be a hunt for these.

Cheers,
-Amit
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anandi said:
Not to hijack this thread, but I just picked up a *ist DS and have no K-mount lenses for it - any suggestions for where beside 'bay to pick up some - any recommendations? I'd wished I'd read about the M42 converter before picking up a flanged one...

Also any opinions on the 18-55mm DA kit lens?

Cheers,
-Amit
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As kit lenses go, it's quite good in my experience.

However, it's very soft (to my mind, in a bad way) when wide open. I did some lens tests with to compare it against some other lenses I have (http://www.flickr.com/photos/salmoni/sets/72157602279597273/detail/) but it's a very ad-hoc series of tests which you can use to decide for yourself whether it does what you need. The pictures are not in a meaningful order, but flickr decided otherwise. I compared:

18-55mm lens (the kit lens)
50mm Pentacon 1.8 (M42)
50mm Zeiss Tessar 2.8 (M42)
58mm Helios 2.0 (M42)
Pentacon 29mm (2.8)
Hanimex 135mm (2.8!)
Vivitar zoom (28-70mm) (3.4-4.8)

All pictures were taken in a reasonably consistent light (overcast) and within a period of 20 minutes. They were taken without a tripod too so blur might be my fault rather than the lenses. Like I said, these are crappy tests, but they might help. I took photos at f8.0, f5.6 and open wide on each lens.

The biggest problem I have with the kit lens though is the speed. I tend to shoot in natural light which isn't so good when it's dark which can limit in certain circumstances. If there is enough light though, you can stop it down which (to my mind) makes it a better and reasonable performer. But for the extra I paid, it was a bargain - in terms of value, it was fantastic if it comes with the body! I guess it depends if you have enough suitable lenses already. If not, then get it; but if you have plenty of decent lenses, then don't bother. The lens itself is quite light too which is good for travelling.

I hope this helps.
 
You might be interested in Sean Carpenter's normal lens shootout:

http://www.pbase.com/carpents/nls

"'Normal' lenses were once-upon-a-time standard issue with the sale of a camera. This makes them turn up regularly (some more than others) on the used marketplace, and as more people use these fixed-focal gems, the more popular they are becoming. I am lucky enough to own 18 different lenses in the 50-58mm range, and as a chronic comparer, I can't resist matching them up against one another. Even though on cropped-sensor digital SLR cameras like mine, these have a short-telephoto view, they will long be known as 'normal' - hence the Normal Lens Shootout.


16 of my 50-58mm focal length lenses were ranked from 1-16 based roughly on overall usage and experience with each. They were then slotted in a single-elimination bracket to determine the best among them all." ...​
 
Alan's lens test was pretty illuminating. The pentacon 29 was a nice surprise and the Tessar really popped out. Kit lens isn't bad stopped down a bit - an in the outdoors. Chris, thanks for the lens shootout. Nice to see the Pentax glass coming out on top. Kim - the links are appreciated. I'd stepped out before reading your post.

My story is the following - I ended up popping over to Galaxy Camera after work and found the adapter there. I also picked up a n inexpensive 28/2.8 pentax lens (sort of like the Nikon E Series) just to mess around with my new ds, thinking that the screw mount lenses would be a pain to use.

I didn't have to worry; I was amazed at how easy it was to use the pentax dslr was with these 20+ year old lenses. Just pressing the AE-L button in M mode before shooting set the shutter speed to the given aperture. High ISO performance was fine for me and the JPEGs, though a bit soft looked nice enough out of the box. But the bokeh from my 55/2 supertak blew me away. Lots of character in the glass.

Having mostly shot the D200 at work lately I was prepared to be somewhat disappointed, but not at all, this pentax is a nice little package and it's clear that the k10d is my next camera in a year.

Cheers,-
Amit

p.s. my lousy test pics are here if anyone's interested: http://www.flickr.com/photos/aanandi/sets/72157602358054382/
 
In breezing through the KEH site as well as the other big ones, it seems that Pentax-A glass is becoming pretty scarce. The issue at hand is that the older glass was VERY well made compared to the current glass. I'm lucky in that I've got all I need, and at some point will probably pick up a DSLR. The K10D looks good, but I'm not ready to do it yet.
 
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