[kcesa31]

Once upon a time at the beach, I spotted a Pentax K-3 across a sandcastle, it was a moment. Beautiful. The world fell still. I was in love.

I am a former Nikon owner, a year and a half ago I sold all my gear due to the fact that I was broke and needed money for food and other stuff, like gas.
Happily things have improved, and I MUST have a DSLR again, I have a Panasonic Lumix, nice little thing, but just does not help me feel fulfilled as enthusiastic, hobbyist photographer

Of course I was going to buy another Nikon, till that fateful day on the beach, fortunately my magic mirror (google) told me that the Pentax was more then just good looks.

I am now trying to figure out the complex labyrinth of Pentax lenses and which to start my happily ever after with, I am leaning towards the 35mm, because that was my favorite walk about lense on my Nikon.....but we shall see. Where would I post my lense queries?

I look forward to learning many good things from you all.

(The end)

[Kerrowdown]

Welcome to the forum, another Nikon convert here... a few years ago now.

[Poit]

Welcome to Pentax-land! Wonderful to hear of new people joining the ranks.

In terms of lenses, you couldn't go far wrong with a DA* 16-50 as a general walk-around (followed shortly after by the DA* 50-135) . The DA* lenses are Pentax' premium range, and therefore not cheap, but very good quality and weather resistant. You would pretty much have an awesome cover-all kit with the K-3 and those two lenses, but your budget might not stretch that far...

[Des]

Good story and well written. Welcome.

If you like 35mm (I assume the Nikon was APS-C not FF, so we are comparing apples with apples), the DA 35 f2.4 (plastic fantastic) is a great value cheap option. The DA 35 f2.8 Limited Macro is more expensive but famously sharp.

But the holy grail for most Pentaxians is the (pricey) FA 31 Limited, one of the renowned "Three amigos" that inspire misty-eyed eulogies (the others are the FA 43 and FA 77). You might also consider the FA 43, which is the most affordable of the three. It is not only the focal lengths that are unique about these lenses.

Some Pentax lens decoding:
- DA in these titles means they were designed for digital cameras. Some have screw-driven autofocus, some have a DC motor and some have SDM AF - the latter two being quieter but sometimes a bit slower. (SDM has had reliability issues, although these are largely said to be resolved now.)
- D FA describes a collection of three macro lenses that are FF compatible.
- F. FA J and FA lenses are (screw-driven) autofocus lenses designed for film cameras (and would carry over nicely if Pentax releases a full frame camera).
- The A series lenses had auto aperture and manual focus. The good primes in the A series are particularly sought after.
- K and M series were manual focus and manual aperture.
All these bayonet-mount lenses used various iterations of K-mount, going back to the 1970s. Any of them can be snapped on any Pentax DSLR and will work fine (with K and M lenses you need to use stop-down exposure metering).

Before K-mount there was M42 screw mount, and they will work too with an adapter.

So there are many many lens models awaiting you.

As you probably know, Pentax uses in-body image stabilisation, so you don't need stabilised lenses.

You can post any lens questions in the forum called "Pentax SLR Lens Discussions". We love spending other people's money. And we love musing about the ideal kit, e.g. www.pentaxforums.com/forums/172-pentax-k-3/272579-holy-trinity-lenses-2.html

Have a good look around this site. There is a great databases of K-mount lenses (divided into Pentax and third party) with user reviews. In a separate section there are reviews of (mostly modern) lenses by Pentax staff. Lots of interesing articles. There are lens clubs for various lenses that include many tips and samples. There is another whole database of sample images from different lenses. And a wealth of information in various other threads. And lots more. And that's just a quick mud map of the kingdom.

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Last edited by Des; 12-27-2014 at 02:27 PM.

[Rimfiredude]

Ah..the love affair begins. Welcome.