Hi all. Made an impulse buy the other week and picked up an old Pentax 35mm body, three lenses, flash, bracket, etc all for $15. I know nothing about Pentax gear but thought I may as well try out the lenses to see what they are like. I now have a 28mm f/3.5 Super Takumar, 55mm f/2 Super Takumar, and a 135mm f/3.5 Super Takumar. The 55mm is a little worn but the glass is good. Are these lenses known as being good performers or are they crap? Here is the 55mm on my D200 and two quick snaps (@f/2) from my backyard this morning. I will have to try out the other two lenses tomorrow.
the Pentax digital bodies require constant attention to make sure they do what they are supposed to do and not some other thing. until you get the K7, your exposure is going to be pretty unpredictable until you really study what it is doing. then, it is merely annoyingly off at times when you think it shouldn't be. as for AF, don't even imagine you can track anything moving, but even for stills, it's not especially reliable in low light or with fast lenses. f1.4 is beyond any Pentax body's ability to AF reliably. 50% acceptably in focus with such a lens is very frustrating. an f2.8 lens misses more than you might think but not as much as with an f1.4. since the AF misses both in front and behind about equally on my bodies, it's not the calibration, which i have set correctly for my lenses. good image quality requires dead on exposures. anything a bit over or under and there is little adjustment room. if you are willing to put up with these types of hassles, the wide to short tele primes are Zeiss quality or better without Zeiss prices.
You must have had pretty bad luck with Pentax bodies. I've owned a K10D & a K20D. I found the autofocus to be very accurate, especially on the K20D. The camera seemed to double check focus somehow. It was painfully slow, but usually very accurate. No less accurate than my D700 is. I agree with your statement on metering though. The bodies I had were unpredictable at times.
You're right about the lenses. When I look at photos I made with the 31/1.8 it still drops my jaw.
I loved Pentax when I shot them (had the K200D and the K20D). Used the DA* 50-135, the 55-300 and I think the Tamron 28-75mm, along with the kit 18-55.
I never had a problem with AF accuracy, but AF speed was atrocious. Pentax has this stupid algorithm of focus, check, focus, check again, confirm, which was very annoying.
I knew when I couldn't track my small children in my home during the day using AF-C that it was time to move on.
I loved the ergonomics though, and came really close to just sticking with them. The lens choices left something to be desired, though, and the FPS was way too slow for my liking.
I really wish I could mix all the best parts of Canon / Nikon / Pentax together to make myself a super camera system (and panasonic, just because I want their EVF)
Pentax was the only camera other than Nikon I fell in love with. That was my first gear I ever owned. Back in the day, Takumar lenses were considered some of the best optics you could get. I still have a lot of gear from that era where I had to buy my stuff using lawn-mowing money. Dad bought me a used Asahiflex when we built a darkroom in 1959. I was eight. It didn't have a pentaprism, just a waist level finder. I upgraded to a used H3 and a Spotmatic in the early 1960s and purchased used glass when I could afford it. Automatic meant you could cock the diaphram and it would close automatically when you pressed the shutter. You then had to recock it again.
Honeywell was the US importer back then and badged them as such. My Spotmatic was a Japan model bought used from a returning serviceman when I was 13 or 14. The H model, if you notice, didn't have metering nor a self timer. They all still work today and with the feeling of a swiss watch. Very quiet too.
Guidenet wrote:
Pentax was the only camera other than Nikon I fell in love with. That was my first gear I ever owned. Back in the day, Takumar lenses were considered some of the best optics you could get. I still have a lot of gear from that era where I had to buy my stuff using lawn-mowing money. Dad bought me a used Asahiflex when we built a darkroom in 1959. I was eight. It didn't have a pentaprism, just a waist level finder. I upgraded to a used H3 and a Spotmatic in the early 1960s and purchased used glass when I could afford it. Automatic meant you could cock the diaphram and it would close automatically when you pressed the shutter. You then had to recock it again.
Honeywell was the US importer back then and badged them as such. My Spotmatic was a Japan model bought used from a returning serviceman when I was 13 or 14. The H model, if you notice, didn't have metering nor a self timer. They all still work today and with the feeling of a swiss watch. Very quiet too.
my *istD, K10D, K20D, and K7 are typical of every one else's. Pentax users put up with things in their bodies that Nikon users would throw them in the river if it happened to them. Pentax is the only company who still has to have their cameras double check focus when the lens stops moving because they still don't monitor focus while the lens is in motion. every other current DSLR manufacturer knows how.
my K10D, K20D, and K7 with calibrated focus for each lens misses focus on the really fast lenses all the time. half an inch front or back with a 77/1.8 wide open and the capture is wasted. stop down to f2.8 and DOF covers up the focus inaccuracies. since the cameras front and back focus about equally, it is not a calibration issue but purely accuracy. i've had multiple instances of the K10D and they all do the same thing. talk to some K20D and K7D owners who are willing to be candid and they admit the same.
shooting with my D3 or D3X, i have no trouble throwing away all my portraits where i can't count the eyelashes or see that the iris pattern is in sharp focus. that's maybe 5% of the time with the 85/1.4 or 50/1.4 wide open when i am shooting moving models. with my K7, which arguably has the best AF of all Pentax bodies, shooting the DA* 55/1.4 leads to 20-30% slightly OOF unless i stop moving and make the model hold still and also work only in bright light.
as for the lenses, there is a reason i own two complete sets of FA Limiteds and a near complete set of DA ones.
Herb...
Tincam wrote:
You must have had pretty bad luck with Pentax bodies. I've owned a K10D & a K20D. I found the autofocus to be very accurate, especially on the K20D. The camera seemed to double check focus somehow. It was painfully slow, but usually very accurate. No less accurate than my D700 is. I agree with your statement on metering though. The bodies I had were unpredictable at times.
You're right about the lenses. When I look at photos I made with the 31/1.8 it still drops my jaw.
(and panasonic, just because I want their EVF)
