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03-10-2016, 03:35 PM - 2 Likes   #1
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Stories behind lens purchases

Just bored on a rainy day...

So what kind of stories are behind your lens purchases?

My FA 50/1.7 was purchased in the spring of 2012. My cousin was getting married in October 2012 and I felt I needed a fast lens to shoot candids. I saw a listing on craigslist in Horseheads, NY, which is a 2 hour drive away. A Pentax PZ-70 with 2 lenses. One was a Tamron 28-200 and the other was obviously a Pentax, but I couldn't quite tell which one, and it wasn't mentioned in the ad. But it did look very much like a 50mm. So I emailed the seller and his wife emailed back that it was a FA 50mm. The total cost was listed as $100. I emailed back that I would be there the next day. Nice couple, but Penn State fans...

Now it's 4 years later, my cousin is divorced, but I still have the lens...


Last edited by boriscleto; 03-11-2016 at 06:10 AM.
03-10-2016, 03:42 PM - 7 Likes   #2
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Most of my lens purchase can be tracked down to LBA, hardly any story to tell
03-10-2016, 04:08 PM - 1 Like   #3
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DA35/2.4 : i had a 28mm not very good, had a A50/1.7. I wanted something in beetween. My only regret ? the short focusing throw. In the future : I will get the FA*31 instead of the DA35/2.4 and the 28/2.8.

DA40/2.8 : Pure LBA. I had money. i clicked. liked it. kept it. But i will sell it soon : too close of the DA35/2.4 and too close of the DA*55. but beside that, a very very very good lens. But i use way more the DA*55 in fact. So the DA40 will go.

DA*55/1.4 : i have the A50/1.7. Wanted something faster. A Porst 55/1.2 came out for 99€. bought it. Was a good lens, but not sharp enought between f1.2 and f2 to my taste. i sold it. I looked for the sharpest 50mm i could find. The FA50/1.4 was a good contender, but not good enought to me. I had money, tried my luck with the DA*55/1.4. My best purchase so far. i won't ever ever ever sell it.

Tak 85/1.8 : a good lens. I wanted a fast 85mm to shoot climbing comps. Was never sharp enought for my taste between f1.8 and 2.8. so i kept it 2 weeks. then sold it. Beside the lack of sharpness wide open, it's one of the best portrait lens i've ever used. Color, contrast, tonality, bokeh, rendering, OOF, all are very good, and very flatering.

Vivitar 70-210/3.5 : i wanted a fast telephoto for cheap. Was very good. It's heavy in my complete kit. Going to be sold soon.

M75-150 : i wanted the lightest telephoto i could get after having lifted the Vivitar 70-210/3.5 for a whole summer. And F4 was enought. So i got the M75-150? I never looked back afer that. Well, my most used lens in the telephoto range. Sharp enought for me at f4. Color is consistant with the DA*55 ( a tad more magenta : +5).

K300/4 : i needed longer than 200mm. A good telephoto. but too heavy to my taste and never enought used. Sold it.

FAJ 18-35 : i needed a UWA for a film photography project during a summer. I used it a lot. But it's too wide for me (i had to use it a lot, to realise that i used the most the 24-28mm the most, and not really the 18-24mm part. I do use the DAl 18-55 when i need wide angle for the film body). i will sell it soon.

Tamron 10-24 : i needed a UWA zoom for APS-C for another competition. Got it for cheap. I don't regret it. Maybe i should have got the Pentax 12-24 instead, just to avoid the inconsistancy in color, compared to my Pentax lenses.


Useless LBA : Super Tak 50/1.4 , Helios 44 : used both twice, and never used them again. I have far better lens, that i like more.


All those trial and error was very usefull : i discovered what i liked and disliked in lenses and in the picture i took with those same lenses. I do now, have a clear idea of the kit i do need for my style. And the best part, is that i want it too. And just that kit. nothing else. No fish eye, no extreme telephoto, no special lens. Just the 10-24 / 31 / *55 / M75-150 (for digital. If i go K-1 i will add probably the FA*85/1.4)

Last edited by aurele; 03-10-2016 at 04:20 PM.
03-10-2016, 04:21 PM   #4
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Best purchase ever, while at a local flea market over ten years ago I came across a Super Takumar 85mm 1.8 M42, The man in the booth also had a Super Takumar 50mm 1.4 M42 but it had been dropped and had suffered a bit of damage. He wanted to sell them as a pair for $30 bucks believe or not!! I already had a mint 50 so I offered him $15 for the 85mm to which he responded ( I will just be happy to get rid of it and clear up some shelf space!!) Needless to say best day in my photographic equipment purchase ever.

03-10-2016, 04:54 PM   #5
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Went to an estate sale that advertised 'cameras' those are always a surprise, you have no idea what they mean by cameras. Anyway, apparently we got there late as the camera gear was well picked over. Not much but some P&S film stuff, the obligatory junk tripod, bag and filters. And the box for a Pentax DSLR. No camera just the box. An *ist something, I don't remember. Now hot on the scent we checked everywhere, high and low. But nothing. Someone had already snagged it but left the box.

My wife picked up something or other and as we were checking out my son's girl friend saw a lens case next to the check out. We asked to look and inside is a mint (as in really, really mint) Pentax-F 50mm f/1.4. How much I ask, and the reply is can you pay $50?
03-10-2016, 05:53 PM   #6
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We often tell 'fish stories' about our amazing lucky finds. I don't have any, really. I once bought a rare one from a member that was woefully mispriced. I sent more than he asked. Not 100% of market value, but I wasn't going to steal it, either. But the following actually happened last summer. In fact so many of these have happened recently that I've spent all my K-1 money. (50/1.2, 85/1.8, SMC DA28 Macro, new FA77).

So there's one of those 'Price Watch' threads here for a K400/5.6 @ some crazy low opening bid. I never even look at the auctions any more because I'm just bidding against another member, but the auction expires with no bids and the seller lists it again. The OP bumps the post and I finally go to look at the lens - and it's exquisite, offered by a highly reputable camera store, and there is one watcher. Lots of posts on the thread - but no activity on eBay.

So I throw in a stupid low max bid and go about my business. Couple days go by and I get an email - you won, send money. Turns out there was a bump or two on eBay and, from the talk in the thread, all the bidders were in the PF conversation.

Odd thing is, in the auction photos there were no caps. But the lens came with the correct metal dinner plate front cap (77mm) and Bayonet rear cap. I wonder if the lack of caps in the photos put people off?

Last edited by monochrome; 03-10-2016 at 07:45 PM.
03-10-2016, 06:05 PM   #7
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Original Poster
QuoteOriginally posted by monochrome Quote
We often tell 'fish stories' about our amazing lucky finds. I don't have any, really. I once bought a rare one from a member that was woefully mispriced. I sent more than he asked. Not 100% of market value, but I wasn't going to steal it, either. But the following actually happened last summer. In fact so many of these have happened recently that I've spent all my K-1 money. (50/1.2, 85/1.8, SMC DA28 Macro, new FA77).
My F 35-135 was another Craigslist purchase. This one was way out in the sticks, real Deliverance country, and it was winter. Guy wanted $50 for a P30T, the 35-135 and two Pentax flashes. I emailed him and asked him if he'd ship it if I sent him $75. He said yes, so I sent him a postal money order the next day (he didn't have a PayPal account).

03-10-2016, 06:10 PM   #8
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Six years ago we bought a house with a realtor who put up with an extremely large amount of shopping on our part. It took the better part of a year to find the right place.

I feel like I crawled around in (and photographed) half the houses in town. I could take the photos, post them online, and my wife could filter the choices before she would come down to look as well.

Two years later, we're sitting at home and the doorbell rings. It's the realtor with a beat up camera bag. He had been showing houses and the bag had fallen out of the back of a garbage truck that was clearing out the remnants of a house that had been cleared out (probably after someone moved). In it was some camera stuff and I had come to mind as the person who might appreciate it. He had no idea I was a Pentax guy.

In the bag was a rather worn Spotmatic that usually works, but it took a big ding on the prism; a Super-Tak 135 f3.5 that is still full of fungus (I can't get it to come apart and I have a very nice M, so I haven't bothered); the smallest 2x teleconverter I've ever seen; and a Super-Tak 50mm f1.4 that had fungus all over the rear group.

Happily the rear group screwed right out, the fungus cleaned right off, and it is super sharp.

-Eric
03-10-2016, 07:10 PM   #9
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Last spring I started a generic "followed search" on eBay - SLR w/lens - Pentax brand - shows up lots of old cameras and lenses. Anyway, someone listed a estate sale find - a camera bag w/an Pentax ME Super & telephoto lenses - they didn't list all of the lenses, just pictures of the bunch. There was one lens in particular - no picture of the front of it, so no one could tell immediately what it was. I could tell it was a Pentax lens though - I ended up counting the rows of knurls on the focus ring - 11. There was only one lens in the entire lens database that matched what I saw -
K28mm F2. Yep.... I think the bidding started at $35 or something. By the time the auction was over, someone else had it figured out, but I still won the auction at $388 for the whole bag. It even came with an original Pentax k28 case. I had to send it to Eric because the aperture was sticky, but all in all, a good investment I think. Someone has one listed on eBay right now for $1298.00 - that's just crazy!
03-10-2016, 07:23 PM - 1 Like   #10
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Many years ago a friend of mine put me in touch with someone who said that he was looking to sell some extra gear, mostly Pentax, and since he knew I shot a lot of Pentax he thought we could make a deal.

Well the guys stuff was all fairly clean and well cared for, mostly third party lenses along with a few Takumars with only a couple of K mount lenses. He did have a couple of preset lenses I would have liked to have but as is often the case he was either too attached to a particular lens or wanted way too much to part with anything. We did finally agree on a price for a couple of his Takumars and a Spotmatic (either a SPII or an SPF can't remember which) and while we were exchanging lenses and money he said that he had another lens (a year or so old A 50/1.4) that wasn't working right that he would throw in for $5 (It was probably cost under $100 new at the time) if I wanted it for parts.

At the time I had done repairs mainly on M42 and a couple of early K mount primes. I only owned two A-series lenses then (and no camera that actually made use of the contacts) and I already had a couple of 50mm lenses, but I figured it would be worth $5 to take a chance to mess around with it and see how different it was inside. I asked him what was wrong with it, and he mumbled something about how these new A series weren't made as well as the earlier lenses, probably entirely plastic inside, Pentax was cutting corners, he'd never buy a new lens again....and so on. He said that he couldn't get the thing to focus on anything past a foot or too, he'd been real careful with it, it had worked fine the whole time he had it and then one day it just broke. He sounded completely disgusted with it and said if the new lenses were that fragile he wasn't going to throw good money at this one to try to have it fixed only temporarily.

He handed me the lens along with the others, The lens looked almost new, barely used. I picked it up and twisted the focus ring which moved smoothly and put it back in the camera bag that he had thrown in with the deal without even taking the caps off. Happy to be done with the guy (never saw him again) I headed home. When I got home I unpacked, put the A50/1.4 on a shelf in my darkroom, took the Takumars out for a little spin.

A couple of weeks went by, I was back in the darkroom and I had just hung several rolls of negatives up to dry. I decided I would take a look at the 50mm to see if there was anything salvageable. I grabbed the 50 and my KX and wandered over to my work bench. I got my small tools out and laid out a rag in preparation. I took the rear cap off and attached it to my camera but when I went to remove the front cap I noticed that It had a +2 close-up filter on the front and there was nothing to fix. The lens worked just fine.
03-10-2016, 07:31 PM   #11
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I bought quite a few K mount lenses back in the day of the auction site and about 90% of those were good value.

One night I saw one of the dreadful "Takumar ( Bayonet) 1:2.5 135 mm" for about 12 $.
I think there was a glowing report on PF that induced me!
A search revealed another one, so I duly opened the pages in separate tabs waiting for the auction.
Had an ale, clicked my $, had another ale, watched the news etc, clicked $ again, won the auction for too much.
It was a few days later when 2 of those 135mm lenses arrived by usps that I realized my mistake !

This photo of those is with the SMC Pentax -M 1:3.5 135mm - a proper lens!
https://app.box.com/s/w7n7wd5u1i36y7tly2vt3jxxbcpnhgbj
03-10-2016, 09:28 PM   #12
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My M 400/5.6 cost me C$300 in the early '80s. A news photographer in Calgary was switching to Nikon so he could swap bits and pieces with the other photographers in the office. As can be seen here and there (including the "kitty" picture which is my latest upload to Flickr) the lens works very nicely. A year or two after the cougar shot, I managed to break the barrel. It was repaired for C$325, and is back working again. It actually works OK with the AFA 1.7x - I tried it last September, and was pleasantly surprised. Stopped down, the old girl is just fine. Wide open, the CA and PF are "interesting" but modern software seems to salvage them OK.

PS: the avatar shows her with her long time companion the MZ-S on my dear old Manfrotto 055 and 0168 ball head in the Creston Valley Wildlife Management Area (British Columbia Canada)

PPS: photo taken with Pentax ME and FA 28-80 by Mrs. Rockies.
03-10-2016, 11:07 PM - 1 Like   #13
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LBA + some disposable income = lenses
03-11-2016, 01:50 AM   #14
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It was summer last year while leisurely surfing the internet I decided to check out craigslist to indulge in my growing LBA. I saw a rather blurry picture of what was described as "camera stuff gathering dust in my basement." Then the seller said, "Make an offer."

From the badly underexposed photo, I knew the camera was the ubiquitous ME with the 50mm/f2. The other item had a lens cap saying Tokina. It looked like a prime lens and came with what looked like a teleconverter.

I emailed the lady advertizing and asked for details about the Tokina. She emailed back saying the front barrel says "Tokina ATX Macro 90mm." Then she added it came with a second piece called Macro Extender. It was the famed Bokina!!!

I did a quick eBay search and there was only one Bokina with the matching extender in K mount available for US$599 exclusive of shipping. I saw two others in Nikon mount for comparable prices. I offered $75 Canadian and was expecting her to email back with the F word.

She did not reply till 16 minutes later (felt like eternity though). "Come pick it up tomorrow."

We agreed to meet after my work next day. But she was very very late. While waiting I was imagining that she had checked eBay and discovered she was about to commit the biggest financial blunder of her life. I wanted to call her but forgot to ask for her telephone and she wasn't replying to my emails.

Finally after over an hour, she showed up oblivious to her being so late. She handed me the original box and inside was the gleaming hard case of the Bokina. Inside was a brand new looking lens. Nonchalantly she quipped, "Oh by the way, I just used it a few times for my university research in the summer. Never used it since then."
03-11-2016, 02:21 AM   #15
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Pentax 55-300:- I had a cheap Tamron 70-300 and being my longest lens it was the one I was looking to take to Silverstone to capture some FIA World Endurance Cars action. Typically the week or so before I was due to go it decided to strip some gears and would no longer zoom. I needed a cheap replacement fast and by chance the 55-300 was on offer at SRS that week.

Penatx 16-85:- Whilst on holiday at Stonehenge my Tamron 17-50 died with the same fault as the 70-300 above. Furious that two Tamrons died similarly and just out of warranty I vowed to seek and alternative brand. Sigma was the obvious alternative because the 16-85 was £499 in the UK i.e. too much! Somehow though I used "man maths" to convince my wife that if I buy the 16-85 bundled with a shiny new K3-II for £1000 I'd be getting excellent value for money. It worked!
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