[jerryleejr]

In all my excitement over my recent camera purchase i totally forgot that the two lenses I have are pre-digital tamron lenses. So when my wife gets my K7 to check out the camera anything other than making sure the lens switch is in the A position? What about her Kr same deal?? Thanks in advance You have to remember the last lenses I purchased were before DA, DI etc lol

JJ

[ripit]

Backward compatibility is one of the great things about pentax. If your lenses are auto focus, they will fully function without limitation. With full manual lenses they will work in manual mode with stop down metering. With a lenses it will work with the lens in A mode. I memory serves the lens will not know the aperture of the lens out of a mode so you would have to use manual mode if you use the aperture ring to set it (though I have an older body so yours may be different on a lenses). In general all old k mount lenses work fine with little or no limitations.

[jerryleejr]

Backward compatibility is one of the great things about pentax. If your lenses are auto focus, they will fully function without limitation. With full manual lenses they will work in manual mode with stop down metering. With a lenses it will work with the lens in A mode. I memory serves the lens will not know the aperture of the lens out of a mode so you would have to use manual mode if you use the aperture ring to set it (though I have an older body so yours may be different on a lenses). In general all old k mount lenses work fine with little or no limitations.

So newer lenses bought with in the last 5 years or so I can just put them on and click away?

JJ

[ripit]

In a word, yes. I have 10 or so auto focus lenses and the only one that is a digital lens is the kit lens. The rest are all older full frame film lenses and they work fine. You can just throw it in p mode (assuming it's auto focus) and fire away. Some of my lenses are probably much older than 5 years and work fine. I tried it out of A mode too. It did not show the aperture like it does in A mode but it still metered and exposed fine.

Edit, I tried an old manual focus A lens and set to A it gave apeture in the caera and exposed properly. ,out of A mode (with camera set to p), it didn,t display the aperture in the camera but still exposed fine. Here is the real kicker. I have a minolta lens that I riped the mount off and replaced it with an A mount from a broken lens, and it works in p mode with proper exposure. Pentax cameras were designed to be fully compatible with any pentax lens ever made. You can even use old screw mount pentax lenses with an official pentax adapter in full manual mode of course.

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Last edited by ripit; 09-08-2011 at 05:29 PM.

[jerryleejr]

Ripit,
Thanks just wanted to make sure before she jumped in, Both lenses showed up today now waiting on the cameras.

JJ

[ripit]

beware the ricoh pin (i think they are only on old manual lenses designed for ricoh cameras). just search ricoh pin (im gonna be late for work but I can explain tomorow if you do not find it).

[littledrawe]

Just out of curiosity, what are the 2 lenses?

[jerryleejr]

Tamron 28-300 and Pentax 35-80

[ripit]

I wasn't watching the time earlier and was almost late for work. As I was saying that pretty much any pentax lens will work no matter how old, and many eventually try some manual glass (you can get really good old glass cheap), I'll give the standard disclaimer. There are two issues to be aware of. There are a few manual focus lenses made for ricoh cameras which had a little different contacts for their A lenses. This was at a time when there were no auto focus pentax cameras (or so I understand) so it wasn't an issue. It used a standard k mount and there were also hybrids that were designed to work as either a ricoh lens or a pentax A lens. If you mount a ricoh lens on a pentax dslr, the ricoh pin will get stuck in the auto focus screw hole and you will not be able to remove the lens. There are a lot of trick to getting them off (I accidentally did it once and was able to slip an automotive feeler gauge in between and got it free). I have heard of people going to camera shops who dissembled the lens to get it off (not cheap I imagine). The pin can be removed and then the lens works fine. I have a lens where the ricoh pin retracts when not in the a position so you can get it off. It's not a bad idea to look at a picture of a ricoh mount to know where the pin is should you ever decide to try manual lenses.
The only other known issue is some old lenses (only a few old vivitars that I have heard of, maybe others), had a shield over the aperture lever that was much longer than standard. They will not mount on a dslr. Many people just remove the shield entirely or cut it back and it works fine. With both issues, its not something that effects most lenses.

[photocanadian]

In my experience with pentax, 90's on (-FA, -FAJ, -F, full auto focus) are *FULLY* compatible with today's digital pentax bodies. 80's lenses (-A) are mostly compatible, short for having to focus manually and enter the focal length during camera startup.

Canon and Nikon are green with envy

So newer lenses bought with in the last 5 years or so I can just put them on and click away?

JJ

[ripit]

Just a bit of further information. Setting the focal length is so that camera shake reduction can work. I have no idea the particulars on it as my older body (ist-ds) doesn't have shake reduction, but regardless its pretty cool to me that even shake reduction has some backward compatibility. I have considered upgrading my body just for that feature before (haven't taken the plunge yet).

[jerryleejr]

Camera showed up today, Lenses worked as advertised.

JJ