New K200

[rober]

1st off. hello to all. I just found & joined this forum. I have a new K200 w/18-55 basic lens & battery grip on its way & want to check on a few things. My 1st 35mm was a spotmatic that was stolen & replaced with a K1000. My research led me to the K200 based on its features & its price AND that i can use my K1000 lenses. My questions are mostly about lens use. How difficult is it to use these manual lenses with the K200? I keep all of my lenses in cases with lens caps & rear caps which should help with dust. what precautions should i take concerning dust when changing lenses? if i were to buy a 2nd auto focus dslr lens which would you recomend for an all purpose lens? Is it more difficult to get good results using the manual lenses?
my manual lens collection includes:
Tokina SZ 80-200 zoom
Pentax -M 1:28 28mm close up
Pentax-M1:2 50mm
Tokina SZ-X 35-70mm zoom
Sigma UC 28-105mm zoom
I've also noticed that with the current flat prices on 35mm film type cameras that there are some really great deals on 35mm camera lenses at the local pawn shops.

[drewdlephone]

If all your lenses are K mount, they should mount easily on your new K200D. You want to put the camera into full manual, or "M" on the dial, and you'll have to set your aperture and focus with the lens instead of the settings on the camera. You'd also do well to tell the camera the focal length of the lens being used, to it can fine-tune the Shake Reduction. Dust isn't any more or less of an issue than with any other SLR, except that your CCD sensor will invariably pickup up some dust over time. The sensor is almost always hidden behind the shutter curtain, so removing/installing lenses shouldn't be an issue provided it's done in a timely fashion and in a low dust/moisture environment.

As to a lens recommendation, I only have the kit 18-55II lens, but if you want a standard kit, the 55-300 or 50-200 are nice secondary lenses. The 50/1.4 prime lens is also a piece to have, especially for dark shots.

Welcome to the forums. I'm pretty new around here myself, and I just recently picked up a K200D too.

[rburgoss]

Dont forget to go through the custom functions and enable "aperture ring use permitted" (or something like that). Otherwise, your new K200D will not be able to meter properly with your actual lenses. In this case, the camera will work only in manual mode (manual exposure) with stop down metering. By using the green button, you will be able to set the camera's shutter speed into a correct exposure for any given aperture set with the lens.

RB

[Marc Sabatella]

Hopefully you are aware by now of the so-called "crop factor" that will make all your lenses act as if they were 1.5X longer focal length in terms of the angle of view. Meaning your 28mm lens isn't going to be wide any more - but it will be close to what your 50 was before. And so on.

As others say, set the "use aperture ring permitted" option (and leave it that way - no need to change it back when using modern lenses). Use M mode, set aperture using the ring, and hit the Green button to get the camera to set an appropriate shutter speed, or hold the DOF preview to see the meter reading and adjust shutter speed for yourself. Basically, with the DOF preview held, your camera wroks more or less like the K1000, expcet the viewfinder does dim as you stop down while using the preview. Oh - and do set the option to make the DOF preview use the "optical" preview, not digital, or none of what I just said will apply.

if i were to buy a 2nd auto focus dslr lens which would you recomend for an all purpose lens?

The 18-55 *is* an all-purpose lens. If you buy another lens, why not buy one that does something different? Like a telephoto zoom (50-200, 55-300, 50-135), or a true macro lens, etc?