[Jim Nawroski]

Hello
I am new to DSLR camera's I just purchased K-r with aDAL 18-55 thier standard lens,
But I do own a few SLR lens, I will list them and if you can tell me what they best suited for it would be a great help!
Pentax-m 1:2 50mm
Takumar(bayonet) 1:2.5 135mm
SMC Pentax -m zoom 1:4.5 80-200mm
optex 2x4 elements tele-extender-m 1:2.8 28mm
I have been useing aOlympus SPk 800uz so this is big jump
you can look me up on flickr weldingproff2008

Jim Nawroski

[VisualDarkness]

Try them and tell us what you think. Everything is individual.

[jatrax]

Pentax-m 1:2 50mm Takumar(bayonet) 1:2.5 135mm SMC Pentax -m zoom 1:4.5 80-200mm optex 2x4 elements tele-extender-m 1:2.8 28mm

Jim,
Pentax M 50mm f/2 was the standard 'kit' lens back in the day. It is Ok, nothing special. On film it would have been called a 'normal' lens on your k-r with the crop sensor it is a short tele, or portrait lens.
Takumar Bayonet 135mm is possibly the most common Takumar out there. I have one and find it works ok but I have better lenses so don't really use it. The coatings are poor so it flares badly. But it is a 135mm f/2.5 so useful as a medium telephoto
Pentax M 80-200mm I don't use early zooms as the newer ones have improved greatly as opposed to primes where often the older ones can hold there own. This is a mid range zoom and to be honest I wouldn't bother with it.
Optex Tele-converter. Not of much use
Pentax M 28mm 2.8 possibly the best of the lot (I think that's what you have it is a little mixed up in your post) This will be close to a 'normal' lens on your new camera.

Be advised that all of these are manual lenses on your camera and can only be used in M mode with stop down metering.

Here is a link that might help you understand the limitations: https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/pentax-beginners-corner-q/110658-using-ma...x-dslrs-f.html Read the section on M lenses.

[Jim Nawroski]

Thank you for the reply!

[Just1MoreDave]

Your set of lenses looks like a classic kit for a K1000 film camera. These lenses are a little challenging to use. They are all manual focus, which is a skill. They all have manual apertures, so at first you'll feel like you need four hands and a time machine to make adjustments. They can help you learn a lot about photography, possibly with some bad shots along the way.

First, take advantage of the DA-L 18-55mm lens for its extra features and compatibility with the camera. It's the lens to use now when you don't have time to focus or measure the light in advance, like family events. You won't have to worry about manually entering a focal length or whatever. A lot of shots are just about shooting at the right time. When you do have some time to experiment, start with some practice on changing the camera settings for these manual lenses, then changing them back so your DA-L 18-55mm works well. The changes you make are personal preference. You just want the camera to be ready for you when you pick it up.

I think like jatrax you have an SMC Pentax-M 1:2.8 28mm attached to an Optex 2X-4 teleconverter. The converter should have a release button that allows you to separate converter from lens. Then the lens will look a lot like the SMC Pentax-M 1:2 50mm with some different markings.

That means three prime lenses (28mm, 50mm and 135mm), a zoom and a teleconverter.

SMC Pentax-M 1:2.8 28mm - You can set your DA 18-55mm to 28mm and see exactly the same image in the viewfinder as with this lens. So at first, it seems not that useful. The 28mm lets in more light than the DA-L, the biggest difference. It's one stop better, f2.8 vs. f4.0. That means it works better in lower light. Because it only has one focal length, it's better at 28mm than the DA-L in subtle ways. It is sharper, especially in the edges and corners of the shot. It has more contrast between lighter and darker areas. The differences are measurable but not easy to see. You'd probably need two shots, exactly the same except for lenses, shown side-by-side to see it. Focus (or misfocus) will make much more difference in your photos. The 28mm has 5 aperture blades, one less than the DA-L, so it will show bright points of light in the out-of-focus areas as pentagons, not hexagons. The field of view is good for many shots - you can see it's in the middle of the range of the DA-L.

SMC Pentax-M 1:2 50mm - Most of what I said about the 28mm applies here, but better. This lens lets in three stops more light than the DA-L set to 50mm, which is quite a difference. The DA-L is at one end of its range, so it's not as good here as in the middle. So it's easier to beat here by a prime lens. This lens is pretty good for portraits. At closer distances and wide apertures, you can get a very small part of the photo in focus and the rest soft or blurry, so the person is separated from the background in a pleasing way. You can be a comfortable distance from the subject, use classic framing techniques, get the right depth of field and work in natural light easily. It has 6 aperture blades so hexagons here.The image quality differences should be more visible here, but focus is still way more important.

Takumar Bayonet 1:2.5 135mm - The DA-L only goes to 55mm, so there's no direct comparison here. The lens was originally meant to be a portrait lens for film, and you could try that. I find that on a digital SLR, I have to be too far away from the subject, except for just a head shot maybe. This lens is really sharp in the center of the frame, a little soft in the corners. You should always use the slide-out hood. because strong side light on the front element can wash out your photo, called veiling flare. The lens is almost two stops faster than the SMC Pentax-M 80-200mm zoom lens so again, it's better in low light.

SMC Pentax-M 1:4.5 80-200mm - This lens is the opposite of what I use so I might be too negative here. It's a little harder to use because of its size, and the camera doesn't know where the zoom is. Ideally you'd change the focal length for SR every time you zoomed, really annoying. In practice, I might set SR to some middle number or turn it off or only use the lens at 200mm. The lens has pretty good image quality for all that, and would be good to see how you like the longer telephoto lengths.

Optex 2X-4 teleconverter - These are advertised as an inexpensive way to double the focal length of the lens they are used with. They do that but the penalties are not mentioned: the lens is now two stops slower (bad) and image quality drops (bad). You can almost certainly get the same quality by cropping in post-processing. This lens won't work properly with your DA-L 18-55 - it shouldn't break anything, just take super-dark shots. It might make a good extension tube with the glass removed.

A lot of people here won't be able to resist pointing out that these lenses aren't the best. They are right but that does not matter a lot. The real key is learning to use any lens to its limits, not spending a lot for fewer limits you can't approach, because you never learned how. I would ignore them for a while and see how these lenses work out. Maybe you dump them and get the SMC Pentax-FA 28mm f2.8, SMC Pentax-FA 50mm f1.4, SMC Pentax-FA 135mm f2.8, SMC Pentax-FA 80-200mm f2.8 and SMC Pentax-F 1.7x AF Adapter. At least you'll know why you're spending $3000.

[Jim Nawroski]

Your set of lenses looks like a classic kit for a K1000 film camera. These lenses are a little challenging to use. They are all manual focus, which is a skill. They all have manual apertures, so at first you'll feel like you need four hands and a time machine to make adjustments. They can help you learn a lot about photography, possibly with some bad shots along the way.

First, take advantage of the DA-L 18-55mm lens for its extra features and compatibility with the camera. It's the lens to use now when you don't have time to focus or measure the light in advance, like family events. You won't have to worry about manually entering a focal length or whatever. A lot of shots are just about shooting at the right time. When you do have some time to experiment, start with some practice on changing the camera settings for these manual lenses, then changing them back so your DA-L 18-55mm works well. The changes you make are personal preference. You just want the camera to be ready for you when you pick it up.

I think like jatrax you have an SMC Pentax-M 1:2.8 28mm attached to an Optex 2X-4 teleconverter. The converter should have a release button that allows you to separate converter from lens. Then the lens will look a lot like the SMC Pentax-M 1:2 50mm with some different markings.

That means three prime lenses (28mm, 50mm and 135mm), a zoom and a teleconverter.

SMC Pentax-M 1:2.8 28mm - You can set your DA 18-55mm to 28mm and see exactly the same image in the viewfinder as with this lens. So at first, it seems not that useful. The 28mm lets in more light than the DA-L, the biggest difference. It's one stop better, f2.8 vs. f4.0. That means it works better in lower light. Because it only has one focal length, it's better at 28mm than the DA-L in subtle ways. It is sharper, especially in the edges and corners of the shot. It has more contrast between lighter and darker areas. The differences are measurable but not easy to see. You'd probably need two shots, exactly the same except for lenses, shown side-by-side to see it. Focus (or misfocus) will make much more difference in your photos. The 28mm has 5 aperture blades, one less than the DA-L, so it will show bright points of light in the out-of-focus areas as pentagons, not hexagons. The field of view is good for many shots - you can see it's in the middle of the range of the DA-L.

SMC Pentax-M 1:2 50mm - Most of what I said about the 28mm applies here, but better. This lens lets in three stops more light than the DA-L set to 50mm, which is quite a difference. The DA-L is at one end of its range, so it's not as good here as in the middle. So it's easier to beat here by a prime lens. This lens is pretty good for portraits. At closer distances and wide apertures, you can get a very small part of the photo in focus and the rest soft or blurry, so the person is separated from the background in a pleasing way. You can be a comfortable distance from the subject, use classic framing techniques, get the right depth of field and work in natural light easily. It has 6 aperture blades so hexagons here.The image quality differences should be more visible here, but focus is still way more important.

Takumar Bayonet 1:2.5 135mm - The DA-L only goes to 55mm, so there's no direct comparison here. The lens was originally meant to be a portrait lens for film, and you could try that. I find that on a digital SLR, I have to be too far away from the subject, except for just a head shot maybe. This lens is really sharp in the center of the frame, a little soft in the corners. You should always use the slide-out hood. because strong side light on the front element can wash out your photo, called veiling flare. The lens is almost two stops faster than the SMC Pentax-M 80-200mm zoom lens so again, it's better in low light.

SMC Pentax-M 1:4.5 80-200mm - This lens is the opposite of what I use so I might be too negative here. It's a little harder to use because of its size, and the camera doesn't know where the zoom is. Ideally you'd change the focal length for SR every time you zoomed, really annoying. In practice, I might set SR to some middle number or turn it off or only use the lens at 200mm. The lens has pretty good image quality for all that, and would be good to see how you like the longer telephoto lengths.

Optex 2X-4 teleconverter - These are advertised as an inexpensive way to double the focal length of the lens they are used with. They do that but the penalties are not mentioned: the lens is now two stops slower (bad) and image quality drops (bad). You can almost certainly get the same quality by cropping in post-processing. This lens won't work properly with your DA-L 18-55 - it shouldn't break anything, just take super-dark shots. It might make a good extension tube with the glass removed.

A lot of people here won't be able to resist pointing out that these lenses aren't the best. They are right but that does not matter a lot. The real key is learning to use any lens to its limits, not spending a lot for fewer limits you can't approach, because you never learned how. I would ignore them for a while and see how these lenses work out. Maybe you dump them and get the SMC Pentax-FA 28mm f2.8, SMC Pentax-FA 50mm f1.4, SMC Pentax-FA 135mm f2.8, SMC Pentax-FA 80-200mm f2.8 and SMC Pentax-F 1.7x AF Adapter. At least you'll know why you're spending $3000.

Thank you Just1more Dave .
your knowledge of the lenses will use along way in helping me to enjoy this purchase
I have a good sence of subject matter and like the of lighting to enhance the shot.I will post some photos
.and give the lense detailand you can critique them.
Thank you again for taking the time to explain the lenses I have

Jim