I am new to Pentax. I don't even have a Pentax body, but my K-7 should arrive Tuesday, along with a DA 70/2.4. I am an experienced shooter with Nikon systems, and recently have become pretty comfortable with old MF lenses on my D3. It remains to be seen whether this skill with manual focus will transition well to an APS-C system. That's the main reason why I got the K-7 rather than the K-x (100% VF), and also the reason I decided to start with AF lens. I hope for the 70 to be my go-to lens for portraiture.
But I would like to try some other glass, and not invest a ton of money at first. I want to see if I can successfully manual focus with this camera. I would like to try a 50, something in the 28-35 range, and then something like a 100, or 135 maybe. Not interested in zooms really. I like faster glass (at least 2.8, hopefully). I like solid build quality, with good, fairly heavy focus damping and long focus throw. I'm kind of a maniac for good boke, so lots of aperture blades would be nice.
I always shoot in manual exposure mode, so any metering deficiencies are not hugely important, but it's nice if my in-camera meter works in spot mode at least, and it's also nice if the lens communicates some kind of EXIF to the camera (but not essential). Optical quality is obviously of great import.
Hoping I can get a few suggestions from y'all. Thanks!