waynecrowley Loc: enerywhere/anywhere

I recently purchased a Nikon D3200 with the basic 18-55 kit lens. I have a Pentax K1000 with several lenses, one of which is a 70-200mm. I can purchase a converter to allow the use of the Pentax lenses on the Nikon for about $35.00. Realizing I can only use these lenses in manual, would this be a wise move? My budget is somewhat limited which is what makes this desirable.
Wayne

G Brown Loc: Sunny Bognor Regis West Sussex UK

many hogs use M42 lenses on their modern DSLR's some say good things some say bad.

I bought a converter for my camera but have not used it to its best yet - just moved house and my wife has 'better plans' like wallpaper....

As you have the lenses $35 is not like buying a new lens. I took a punt and bought converters for both of my cameras. They are plastic discs and cost a couple of £ each. As a landscape photog my camera is mainly on a tripod and manual focus isn't too time consuming in the greater scheme of things.....if you shoot sports it will be a major issue.

Old leses are often quoted as being softer focussed. great for portrait but not to everyones taste.

As your lenses will be manual you could make up a mask between your camera and your lens (roll of card etc) like an extension tube and try a few shots before buying the converter (setting on your camera to 'shoot without lens' is needed). this is a common practice for those who do not have a tilt shift lens - they simply don't attatch their lens and tilt and shift it....in your case the mask allows you to keep the lens away from your camera body in case there are bits that will hit the mirror. Put the camera on a tripod so that you are only holding ONE thing at a time....!

You will get an approximate feel for the results - any distortion caused by the distance difference with the mask should be minimal and more about F stop.

If your lens has a needle apperture pin it needs to be taped down and set F on the lens - your camera will then adjust just the same by TTL metering.

Hopes this helps a little

George

Nikon_DonB Loc: Chicago

If you can't afford new lenses right now, the converter would be the way to go considering the Pentax lenses are good quality. Although you can get a 55-300mmVRg for about $200. Your decision.

GoofyNewfie Loc: Kansas City

Because of the different lens flange to focal plane distance, it requires an adapter with a correction lens to achieve infinity focus.
It also boosts your focal length by 1.4x.

"The adapter has a built-in 1.4x multi-coated focus-correction lens to adjust for infinity focus and the glass element can be removed for macro photography. Adapter caps are included to protect the focusing element when not in use."

This part is a royal pain in the keester: "Automatic diaphragm, auto-focusing, or any other such functions will not be accessible while using this adapter. "Stop-down mode" will need to be used when attempting to use in-camera metering with a lens and this adapter because a lens used in that case will not have the ability to have its aperture controlled by the camera body.
You can shoot in manual mode or aperture priority mode."

If you shoot landscapes, it may not bother you that much.
For anything that moves, you will be extremely frustrated.
Losing the automatic diaphragm function means you will have to manually stop the aperture down to the desired setting when you take a photo.
People take the automatic diaphragm feature for granted these days.

Fotodiox adapter for mounting Pentax K lenses to Nikon bodies link here.

waegwan Loc: Mae Won Li

Amazon has an adapter for as cheap as $2.97. I got a package of 4 for $5 for my Canon and they do the trick I have posted results in a couple of different threads on the site.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Delectronics&field-keywords=M42%20to%20D3200

I'm not sure your Nikon will react the same as my Canon but my old Vivitar Series 1 70-210 M42 converted is sharper than my Canon 18-200 in some situations although as you already mention it is all manual. I'm using my Pentax M42 50mm f1.4 as the only 50mm prime I traded my Canon 50mm USM f1.4 for a nice carbon fiber tripod. But that is because on my crop sensor Canon I just don't use the 50mm prime that much. I'm more apt to use the 35mm f1.4 prime or the 18-200 zoom.

speters Loc: Grangeville/Idaho

I do use M-42 adapters for some lenses, I use a really cheap ($20)adapter to use some old FD glass for my FE and I use cheap ($40) adapters to use old Hasselblad lenses and other MF lenses on my FE mount - and I like'em all!!

blackest Loc: Ireland

Thank you , thank you for your inspiring post, seriously you just solved a problem for me. your mention of the 1.4 x in the fotodiox adapter gave me a lightbulb moment. although i have a pentax k to eos adapter i couldnt use it on my canon as there wasn't clearance for the mirror and i didnt want to modify my lenses to make them only good for canon.

however i was willing to mod a teleconverter and now i have lenses that i can use on 4 different bodies :)

blankmange Loc: down on the farm...

or you could sell off your Pentax collection to fund the new system...