Originally posted by femto I am really happy for all the responses I got so far. But just to clear things up a bit, I am not looking to change systems or buy modern lenses for a non Pentax camera. The whole idea is to bridge the time until prices normalize a bit. I am eager to play around with swirly bokeh which is not really happening on apsc, or turning 135mm into a more useful focal range for example. So getting a cheaper camera and an adapter sounded like a good idea, because I can easily resell it later for about the same price and even save some money just by waiting the current situation out. Since I do not care too much about state of the art technology, I might as well get an outdated pro camera to do the job. Why not? I understand that those are typically heavily used, but they were built to last long and offer some interesting features in addition to certainly not being too small. So the question remains which one would be suitable to use mit K mount lenses? Is adapting to Nikon really such a big deal, because some extra glass is needed? Or would I simply need a high quality adapter? I also like the D700 idea. It seems to offer a lot its price.
Adapting to Nikon isn’t going to work. The glass type adapters act as a teleconverter, so you end up with 1 stop of light lost and essentially the same or close to the same field of view as a cropped apsc body would give. On top of which the image quality degrades. Honestly other than mirrorless I don’t know of a good option to adapt Pentax lenses to. The mirrorless options are viable due to the short flange focal distances involved - the dslr options all are either too close to adapt (Nikon, Sony A Mount) or have mirror fouling issues like Canon.
Changing systems is viable for some people, but you have said that doesn’t fit your needs. You really have four options: 1) stay with apsc for now and wait for money to be saved and proceed to drop, 2) get a Sony A7 series Body and a passive adapter, 3) increase the budget and get a k1 now, 4) despite what you really want, change systems.