[nostatic]

I've been shooting "seriously" for a few years now (though dabbled on and off for over 30 years) and following a short dance with a K10d body (after my D70 got sick) with kit 18-55 and 100 macro, I'm starting clean slate.

Here's my "style" - hk08 - Page 1

I took these last week, where I had my Leica D-Lux3 and K10d with me. The reality is that almost all of these images are from the Leica. Part of that is just that I had the camera with me more, but I also just wasn't happy with what I was getting from the Pentax. I also was not impressed with the feel and build of the 100mm macro lens (or the kit lens but I don't expect much from that). Coming from a Nikkor 105 (pre-VR), the Pentax felt cheap and klunky.

While I wholeheartedly lay most of the blame at my feet/hands/eyes, I can get what I want with some setups (I don't shoot the Leica full auto, but rather in program mode and manually set iso all the time, and sometimes manually set aperture and/or shutter) so I think it is a combination of learning the tool as well as finding the one you bond with.

Given the way I shoot (or what I see), what would be your top couple of lenses to put on a K20d body? I could go back to Nikon and get a D300 but I really want to like the Pentax. I don't care about fps or nanosecond AF. In fact, I prefer to manual focus (and do it with the Leica often using the joystick). But I do want to use AF from time to time, and would like auto aperture.

I'm thinking an SMC A 50/1.4 or 1.7 for low light/indoors, a Voigtlander 125 macro (if I can find one), and maybe a * zoom? I hate to spend that much money right now, so I suppose the 16-45 could do in a pinch...

[KungPOW]

I have no idea what lens you would need in the pentax world.

But thank you for sharing you images of Hong Kong. Beautiful and inspirational.

Part of why I enjoy this forum is for the international contributions. Tonight I got to visit Hong Kong.

Thanks.

Eric.

[Buddha Jones]

31mm LTD and 77mm LTD

[nostatic]

31mm LTD and 77mm LTD

funny, but at some point late last night almost the same thing popped into my head:

35mm macro ltd
77mm ltd

[Buddha Jones]

yeah, that 35mm macro sure is intriguing...

[roscot]

In addition to the fine limiteds, look at any of the A* lenses. A*200, and the A* 85 come to mind and if you have deep pockets, and can find one the KA*135 f1.8. Also the A50 f1.4, A28 f2.8, A20 f2.8. for a zoom the KA 35-105 f3.5 is very fine and underrated lens. Most of the KA lenses are really fine optically. There are a few gotchas, though (Stay away from the KA135 f2.8). The KA lenses are made of metal, have very good build, and since they are MF lenses, they have a much better MF feel.

You might also consider a Katz Eye Focus screen, if you prefer MF.