[Steve Beswick]

I've looked around and all the sub $100 AF lenses are zooms. Are there any AF primes that can be had for less than $100, even used?

[Steinback]

Well, anything is possible on the used market. I know of people who have purchased AF primes for under $100 or, more commonly, under $100 per item as part of a lot of used gear from places like Craigslist and ebay.

I recently ran into a guy at a camera show with 3 FA 50mm macros at $150 each for sale, which is about half of what I'd expect to pay in the marketplace here on the forum. A similar deal on an F or FA 50 or 28 would be under $100.

[WiseOx]

Craigslist is you friend. I recently found a FA28 for $90 and a F50mm f1.7 for $100. Check often....every city has a Pentax guy like me who checks Craigslist and Kijiji daily for stuff to pounce as quickly as possible.

Good hunting.

[reeftool]

There are always good deals popping up on used stuff, just be quick because somebody else will get it and I have kicked myself a few times. Just remember there is always a risk with used lenses.

[legacyb4]

Oh neat, Kijiji has alerts; that makes it immensely more useful than CG!

Craigslist is you friend. I recently found a FA28 for $90 and a F50mm f1.7 for $100. Check often....every city has a Pentax guy like me who checks Craigslist and Kijiji daily for stuff to pounce as quickly as possible.

Good hunting.

[PrimeObjectif]

clgenie.com

[Nick Siebers]

I think Sigma made an AF version of the mini-wide and/or the super wide (28 and 24mm respectively, f/2.8). The MF ones have very good reputations, so may be worth looking at if you can find one.

[VaughnA]

Check your local pawnshops. I picked up a group of lenses and bodies for 125 that I sold for about 250 and kept the 50 F1.7 Autofocus as well. I hit my local pawn about every week.

[dadipentak]

I think Sigma made an AF version of the mini-wide and/or the super wide (28 and 24mm respectively, f/2.8). The MF ones have very good reputations, so may be worth looking at if you can find one.

Indeed the 24mm is one of my favorite lenses. I had a MF and then upgraded to AF (same optics.) Very reasonable buy

[Steve Beswick]

Thank you all for your input so far. I guess what bothers me is that it's possible to pick up a DA 18-55 new for roughly $70, but to buy any new prime lens will cost many times that. Shouldn't some primes (FA 50 for example) be less expensive to make than even a consumer zoom? For example, why is the DA 40 f2.8 so expensive? As far as I know it only has ~5 elements and should be much simpler & cheaper to make than any zoom.

[Marc Sabatella]

Any f/2.8 lens will require more glass and more precision in its cutting to get even "average"' results than a slower lens will. And if you want to be way *above* average - like the DA40 - that's even more precision required. Toss in the much better metal housing over the palstic used in the zoom, and simple supply & demand (way more people buy zooms than primes), and it shouldn't be surprising the DA40 or FA50 would cost more than the 18-55.

BTW, prices of lenses cn vary wildly from vendor to vendor, and some of them are just out to gouge people. Not sure what price you are seeing on the DA40, but the two most reputable dealers in the US - B&H and Adorama both have it at $340. That's rather higher than it was last year, and this increase has been the source of much anguished discussion lately, but still, for a high-quality precision instrument like the DA40, $340 is not particularly out of line.

[Marc Sabatella]

BTW, another thing I should have pointed out - while might be *possible* to pick up an 18-55 for $70, that's not really the regular going rate when buying form a regular dealer - it's more like $150. It's possible to get them cheaper because Pentax bundles this lens in with many of their cameras, so that the "kit" contins camera and lens costs only $70 more than the camera alone - but that's just something Pentax takes a small loss on in order to encourage cameras sales. It's not like Pentax can really sell that lens on its own for that price. Of course, some stores might break the kit and sell the lens separately for $70, but that's only possible because Pentax sold it to the store as part of that kit in the first place.

Also, there is the old version of the 18-55 that was continued when version II came out, so anyone who still has existing stock of that will be selling it off cheap just to get of it.

[Steve Beswick]

OK, so maybe the DA 40 was a bad example. Maybe I'm just being nostalgic. I do clearly remember when I bought my first new SLR, A P3n, That the standard kit was the 50mm f2 A series lens, and if you wanted the zoom kit it was considerably more money. Now that I think about what you have written I mostly agree with you, although I seriously doubt that the DA 40 has as much glass in it as the DA 18-55.

[roentarre]

You better off wait til you can afford a good zoom or prime.

In older days, zooms are of lower quality so primes provide a good tool for someone who wants low weight gear with low light capability. Hence the image quality after stopping down can be significantly better than the zooms at the time.

Nowadays, most zooms are so well made that you better off invest your money on a decent lens rather than buying these old primes with a lot of regret due to lack of quality control of old lenses in the second hand market

[tr13]

I really suggest Vivitar Series 1 28-90mm F2.8-3.5 for manual zoom
or something like Tamron from modern AF F2.8 zooms.