I have been a lens enthusiast since the late seventies, and as a result I have been buying photographic objectives, at times more and at times less, over a very long time.
I stopped when Covid struck, and since then instead of buying new lenses I dedicated a lot of my free time to consolidating all my lenses in the same room (before they were stored in different locations), storing them in a rational way, and trying to keep them visible, and not hidden in some obscure drawer.
I already went through the vast majority of them, giving them a cursory cleaning, separating lenses from boxes and quivers (that were listed and then boxed and put away), and trying to find a place for each one of my many many objectives.
Doing so, I started counting... and I have been kind of terrified when I discovered that my PK lenses... and I mean only those born with a PK mount, reached the embarrassing number of around 160.
To be sincere the number includes some teleconverters, but excludes all medium format adapted lenses (10 or so those that makes sense using), plus all the T-mount lenses that have acquired a PK mount, those converted from other mounts like the Leitax'ed ones, and the huge number of macro/micro/RMS/inverted enlarger optics than can be effortlessly mounted on a PK bellows.
Considering all of them the number gets dangerously close to 200, which I find kind of embarrassing, especially considering I never meant to collect PK lenses
I always thought I collected only historical large format optics...
On a positive note, I bought only two lenses in the last three yers, and none in the last two, but during the same period I really found great pleasure (especially when I was forced to stay home) in handling, rediscovering, caring for, finding a place on display, etc, for all my beloved objectives. Some of them had practically disappeared from my memory, and rediscovering them made me, well... happy
Maybe a few of you know what I mean. It was like acquiring them for the first time. Some of the very old ones were in pieces, and I had to reassemble them, or at least put together the pieces
I promised myself that as soon as I had the chance to find interesting photographic subjects I would start to test on my K-1 some beautiful M42 lenses, like a few old Takumars (or some CZJ, Komura, Steinheil, Meyer, Schacht, etc). Especially for portrait use some of those lenses are just wonderful. Maybe the Laowa Venus 105mm is the real queen of portraits, but I will try my best with what I have. Some early tests are extremely promising.
I don't have a darkroom since long, so I think I will never use again large format lenses. At least I want to pass some light through those for smaller formats... and fortunately the K-1 seems to be a perfect match for them.
My struggle to find a visible place for all my babies is partially documented here:
the big grey box project - or where am I going to store 50+ lenses and the rest of it - Page 4 - PentaxForums.com
I know there are other vintage lens fans out there.
Please feel free to share your experiences/feelings.
Cheers
Paolo