lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

That is not true if you consider older no longer manufactured Pentax lenses, then you can use Pentax lenses from as far back as the 1950's, as long as they are M-42 or K-mount lenses. The earliest Pentax lenses were likely M-39 screw mounts, you are out of luck there unless there was a M-39 to M-42 adapter insert ring (Leica, Voitlander possibly). There are probably a thousand different models of vintage Pentax & Takumar lenses out there on the used market.

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

I'd rephrase that first sentence to
Pentax has retained a similar backwards compatible bayonet mount since its inception around 1973 to this day.
The mount has had tweaks for various changes to electronics in the lenses, but all are mechanically (manual) compatible.

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

Actually it should have been a smc-Pentax-M 50mm f/1.7 that came with a ME (M series), but I too have Pentax cameras that came with lenses newer than the model of camera.

I agree, the "A" 50mm f/1.7 is one of my best of lenses. I also have Pentax "A" 50mm f/2, "M" 50mm f/1.4, "K" 55mm f/2, "M" 50mm f/4 Macro. Had a "M" 50mm f/1.7 that was stolen. And I have a M-42 Takumar 55mm f/1.8, Takumar 50mm f/4 Macro. Non-Pentax users must be falling asleep by now. Yes, I kind of have a collection of "normal" prime lenses.

terry44 Loc: Tuolumne County California, Maui Hawaii

Welcome to the forum, I have 2 tubs full of film cameras and lenses, I use my Pentax lenses on my K-7, and have a adaptor for it so that I can use my Nikon lenses also, there are adaptors for most dslr's out there the nice thing about Pentax is that the old lenses from the me days still work on Pentax cameras, do not know if they work on the new k-1 but others here will know.

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

Yes, as I've been saying repeatedly (people not reading posts by actual 39 year experienced Pentax owners). Should I bother?

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

Looking at the "views" count, apparently most were warned off by the title.

agillot

i also used pentax from the 70 s on , now because of a gift am using nikon .i got a used dslr pentax 6 mp , Ist D s, all lenses work fine , that pentax Ist D s has a auto exposure system , that work great even with T mount lenses .got it from japan on ebay , looked like NOS , paid $ 90 .

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

Not my title even though I've posted most to it. GWH as a first-time UHH'er did come up with an awkward title. Caught my attention though.

pendennis

Several of the local shops around here have film, just not as big a selection as before digital. However, I plan far enough in advance, and order mine from B&H. They get it to me in just a couple of days.

I just picked up some Pentaxes that I'd longed to have in the past. I found great deals on some Spotmatics (SP-II and ES-II), and Super Program and Program Plus. I've gotten some great test results with the Spotmatics using 50mm f1.4, 28mm f3.5, and 100mm f4 lenses. I have a 50mm f1.7, 50mm f2, and a Promaster (Sigma) 28mm f2.8 for the Super and Plus cameras. I also have a Nikon F6, FA, and FE2. I'm also back into medium and large format film. I love digital, but film is a great genre, and I don't think it's going out of production any time soon.

GENorkus Loc: Washington Twp, Michigan

1500mm lens? Good Grief! Is that used to count the hairs on an animal a mile away? LoL

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

Yes, I found out the hard way. Have a Ricoh lens (that is redundant anyway) to never be used again. I also posted about this here and on a new Post so it might get read.

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

And a lot of dittos for me too.

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

Yes, there is such a Pentax lens, and I believe it is painted White as well!

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

Yes.

Lenses that fit and worked on a Pentax ME (P/K bayonet) will work on modern Pentax. They also are easily adapted and used on modern Canon and Sony DSLRs. It's a bit slower to shoot with those vintage lenses on any of these, but it can be done.

HOWEVER, many of the more affordable DSLRs use an "APS-C" size sensor that's smaller than the image area of your 35mm film cameras. This causes a crop/magnification effect that you might find noticeable. For example, on a Pentax or Sony APS-C camera your 28mm lens will "act like" a 42mm lens would have acted on your film camera. It will no longer be very "wide angle". OTOH, that 1500mm lens will be more powerful telephoto than ever, now acting like a 2250mm lens would on the film camera (if such a thing existed). Multiply any focal length by 1.5X, to estimate how those old lenses might seem to work on the modern APS-C sensor DSLRs.

Canon APS-C is ever-so-slightly smaller and uses a 1.6X "lens factor". This means that on Canon APS-C DSLR the 28mm behaves like a 45mm or the 1500mm like a 2400mm.

In all cases, the focal length of the lens doesn't actually change... it just behaves differently. This is no different from the days of film, when a 180mm lens was a fairly strong telephoto on a 35mm film camera, a moderate strength tele portrait lens on a medium format film camera or a standard lens on a 4x5 sheet film camera.

Pentax K-3 and K-70... Canon T7i, 77D, 80D, 7D Mark II.... Sony a6500, a6300, a6000 are all examples of APS-C/crop sensor digital cameras on which your older lenses might be used.

There ARE "full frame" DSLRs that use a larger sensor matching the size of the image area of your film camera, where you would see no difference in the way the lenses behave. Pentax K-1, Canon 6D-series and 5D-series, and Sony a7 and a75-series cameras are all examples of full frame models. These tend to be more expensive than the APS-C models mentioned above.

Those Pentax P/K bayonet mount lenses should mount directly on the Pentax cameras mentioned above. To use them on the Canon or Sony would require a relatively simple and inexpensive adapter (glassless, so there should be no degradation of image quality).

Architect1776 Loc: In my mind

Also with a $20.00 adapter you can use all your K mount lenses on any Canon EOS camera and the same-sex with the M42 mount lenses and they will focus to infinity and the meter works with all the lenses and all EOS cameras. So you have many options to choose from.