[SandyLilyGirl]

Hi, I am newly retired, and I am ready to move to interchangeable lenses. I was an avid Pentax K1000 person in the 70s and 80s. When I first met my husband, the love of the K1000 was one of the things we had in common! The 90s and 00s were busy with work, so point and shoots moved in. My biggest use of the camera today is for macro shots of butterflies, flowers, and landscape shots. I have been very frustrated with my point and shoot's, as they don't grab onto the butterfly for focusing, but focus anywhere but the butterfly. The point and shoot I have that has the longer zoom is impossible for me to focus. I guess I wiggle too much.
I have been lurking on this forum for a few months now, and I have really enjoyed it. My plans are to buy a Pentax K-7. I am not sure what lens I want to go with it yet. I really like 'good bokeh'. I don't mind manually focusing shots, so I may be able to get by with a less expensive lens at first. I do really drool over the new lenses however....

[Ole]

A K-7, a D FA 100mm F2.8 macro, and a solid tripod and you're all set to go for macro photography! Hand-held macro is very difficult because of the shallow depth of field, hence the tripod suggestion! And you'll probably want to manually focus your macro shots, which makes older and cheaper manual focus macro lenses interesting as well.

I would suggest to not go shorter than about 100mm for a macro lens since you want some distance to the object.

[Ash]

Welcome here, and congrats on your retirement.
Hope photography grows fondly on you to give you and your family a lot of pleasure.
The K-7 is a fine camera. Seems you would benefit from a dedicated macro lens (as Ole suggested) and perhaps a good wide angle lens such as a DA 16-45, or if you need it even wider a DA 12-24. Enjoy your time here and with your photography.

[Kerrowdown]

Welcome to the forum, my retirement lasted about 3 months, boredom set in, back to work.

[SandyLilyGirl]

Wow, this forum is great! Thanks so much for the responses. To Ole', the D Fa 100mm f2.8 sounds perfect. I have a tripod, but it is a cheap one and I fuss with the adjustments a lot. I need one that adjusts more easily. To Ash, the time I would expect to use the wide angle would mostly be on vacation. I have a young (34 year old) nephew in Denver who goes on vacation with me to places like Yellowstone and Rocky Mountain National Park. If he thought I took pictures "of everything" with my point and shoot, wait for the SLR! I have not ever used a wide angle lens, but I look forward to experimenting. For kerrowdown on the banks of Loch Ness, concerning retirement, I am having days that I feel that I am not useful, and that is the worst. Also, there is no one to talk to all day, so when I do see someone, I'm afraid I talk too much. I'm hoping that Spring will get me outside more, and that I can't get bored once I'm with nature. I really want to stay retired...I think.

[NaClH2O]

Hi SLG and welcome to the forums. I'll have to admit I'm a bit jealous, my retirement is 3 years away. But I'm looking forward to it hugely. I've got a really long list of stuff to do. Anyways, I've a couple of questions. Do you have any of your old pentax K1000 lenses? They will work perfectly on your new K-7. Obviously, they won't auto focus and if they aren't "A" lenses you won't have auto aperture either, but if you used a K1000, they will work perfectly well.
I'm going to go a different route in my lens suggestions.
I'm going to suggest either the pentax DA 16-45 or the Tamron 17-50 and also a Raynox 125 or 250 clip on macro. The Raynox's are pretty inexpensive and give great results see here This way you will be able to get decent macros and also have a good all'round shooting lens. As far as I'm concerned landscapes usually require something a bit on the wide side, at least below 20mm. And both of these lenses will give you that.
Since you don't mind manual focusing I'm also going to recommend the Pentax "A" 70-210 lens. It's a good medium telephoto, is relatively good in low light at constant F4.0 for a older telephoto zoom, and it has the best bokeh of any of my zooms. It even has a "macro" function at the 70mm end, tho I'd label it more "close focus" than true macro. They are relatively inexpensive. As far as I know there is at least one for sale in our local marketplace, do a search for "Pentax A 70-210"

NaCl( oh and welcome to LBA too!)H2O

[Scottnorwo]

welcome to the forum and congrats on your retirement (mine is coming soon too, in my next lifetime). All good suggestions above. I will toss in the versitile Pentax 55-300mm lens. Super lens with a variety of uses. Good luck and looking forward to see some of your shots.

[SandyLilyGirl]

OK I am a little overwhelmed by all the lenses to choose from. Yes, SaltWater, I do still have some of my old K1000 lenses, but I don't have much to brag on. I have a 50mm 1.4, which is good, and two really cheap zooms. A Vivitar 72-210mm f4.5-5.6 macro is one of them, and I can't remember the other right now. The newest lens I have will probably be a problem with the Pentax. It is a Vivitar 100mm f2.8 with an Olympus bayonet mount. It was in a bundle deal on an auction, that had 4 lenses really cheap (smile now, all you old sages!). The seller knew nothing about the mounts, so I bought them blindly. Two had Canon FD mounts, a nearly unheard of Kimunor 500mm f8, and a Prospec 28mm f2.8. The 4th one was an RMC Tokina 75-260mm 4.5 with a mount I think might be a Nikon. Sooo I am mostly starting from scratch. I've been trying to read up on adapters. In any event, I need a modern lens to enjoy the camera "at full speed ahead", and I can play with the ones with adapters as I get them retrofitted.
To Scottnorwo, we just got a break in our weather here in the Bluegrass, and I think I am getting ready to shoot some pics. Unfortunately, the melting snow and mud didn't do much for making me see things in an artistic way. I have been looking at all the new Pentax lenses on the Pentax site, and I am going to have to choose 1 or 2.

[Ash]

Enjoy learning.
The most popular types of 'old' lenses to use on Pentax cameras are the M42 manual lenses - simple M42 to K-mount adapter and you're ready to go.

[SandyLilyGirl]

Hi Ash, I am enjoying learning. The digital world is a moving target when it comes to learning, but I'm glad to be alive in the day of the internet as it provides the fastest access to knowledge that one could get. BTW I have an old friend who grew up in Toowoomba. He is a dentist and anesthesiologist. I knew him here in the States, but he is back in Australia now. I must try to catch up with him again.

[Ash]

Wow - that's one way to get this little country town on the world map!
Hope you get the chance to visit too.

You know, one thing that'll make the transition from film to digital easy is a simple instructional book or website, e.g. https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/pentax-dslr-camera-articles/102454-90%25-...downloads.html, Training | Digital Photography Principles The Camera and Digital Photography Tutorials - Photoxels

[SandyLilyGirl]

Hi NaClH20, I was really impressed with the pics on the Raynox macro site. I ordered the two "clip on" macro lenses. That looked like the kind of experimentation that makes photography fun. Which forums do you follow?

[SandyLilyGirl]

Ash, are you suggesting that I read the instructions??? Just joking. I am one who reads the instructions, much to everyones dismay. I know that I really need to read the manuals when the titles have words that I have never heard of, such as 'photoxels' in them.
BTW my friends surname is Skerman.

[Ash]

But sorry if I ever came out patronising.
Shifting from film to digital is not too difficult but can be disconcerting to some, and I'm just keen to show that all those extra buttons don't mean all that much more.

[ejbpesca]

Funny, I've been retired 7 years and just moved from DSLR to x90 which I call a kind of hybrid..sorta like a DSLR..sorta like a point and shoot with many features.