The Pancake lenses

Is there a compact film camera from Pentax or other manufacturers on which these

lenses can be mounted?

 

smc P-DA 21mm F3.2 AL, smc P-DA 40mm F2.8 and smc P-DA 70mm F2.4

 

Thanks!

No. Sorry :( Just their (D)SLRs...

Are you sure about that? I don't have one, but I assumed that any of the PZ-/Z- series that have the control wheel on the body would let you control an aperture-ring-less lens.

yes, it's sure because they are not designed to cover the 35 mm format just the so-called

the reduced APS digital format

When the 40/2.8 came out lots of people tried it on film bodies and said that it worked well with full coverage. There were several threads here and links to pictures as well, but you'd have to search for them. I remember being impressed with them. I haven't heard of anyone trying the 21 or 70 on a film body. Something like an ME Super with that 40 pancake would be an amazingly small slr - a rival for most rangefinders even.

Note that the DA40/2.8 and the much older M40/2.8 optically are very similar (perhaps

identical?) lenses. Both (as well as the 70mm) will cover 24x36 although the M version has an

aperture ring.

MZ-M / ZX-M with KA2 mount model is even smaller. It's just over 300gms and supports AF. It looks reasonable good too.

I have got to say, I would happily build a travel kit with these pancake lenses if I were rich enough to have to different SLR systems. As it is, I'm stuck with Canon and their larger lenses.

So have I got this right? Assuming the 40 and 70 can cover 35mm and do it well all the way out to the corners, you could use these lenses on any body that has a Program or shutter-priority mode. You would not be able to use aperture-priority, manual, or bulb (except at the maximum aperture) unless the BODY has a way to select the aperture from the body (like the control wheels on the PZ- series). For example, on the MZ-M/ZX-M, if you leave the shutter speed dial on "A" then you have Program mode, if you change the shutter speed dial to a particular speed then you are in shutter-priority mode, but you have no manual or aperture-priority mode because there's no way to change the aperture manually.

 

Make sense?

Yes, of course I forgot about the lack of an aperture ring on these lenses. Jerry, I think you have it exactly right. Actually I opted for the 43/1.9 limited lens because without its included screw on hood it is barely bigger than the 40 pancake and has a much faster aperture. It also has a real aperture ring with an A setting, so I can also use it on whatever Pentax body I want to.

I'm late to the party here, but yes, my understanding is that your understanding is correct.

 

Just to complete the story, I haven't got the 40mm or 70mm, but, as already mentioned, word is they're usable with 35mm film format. I have tried the 21mm on an old MX body and it vignettes. Not as much as I thought it might, but it's obvious, nonetheless. On my K100D, it's a very pleasing lens, however, and turns the camera into quite a neat little package. A useful moderate-wide-angle on the DSLR (about 32mm equivalent to 35mm), as well.

There was someone here using the P-DA 40mm on his (or her) film SLR and they reported no vignetting. Personally I wouldn't go that route though.

The DA 40mm works great on 35mm film bodies. There is no vignetting.

 

 

You can check the subsequent images in my Flickr photostream for test shots with this lens.

 

The DA 40mm is easily my favorite lens on the *ist -- very light and compact.

By the way, you can search the tags in my Flickr photostream for "DA40mm" and see a few more shots with the DA 40mm on 35mm film.

 

While I saw quite a few tests of the 40mm on film before I bought it, I haven't seen any comparable tests of the other two pancakes on film bodies. If any of you have tried them, please post!

 

Among the last generation of Pentax 35mm film bodies, only the *ist, ZX-6 and ZX-L (MZ-6 and MZ-7) are fully compatible with the DA 40mm, since they can set the aperture from the body. I bought a ZX-L as a backup, and the DA 40mm works fine with it.

I think there may be some confusion here (hope it isn't me). For use of DA lenses (like the 40 2.8 Ltd) on a film body the "crippled" mount is actually desirable because these bodies were designed to have manual aperture control exclusively in-body with the new (at the time) FA-J lenses. These bodies include the MZ-30/ZX-30, MZ-50/ZX-50, MZ-60/ZX-60 as well as the *ist. All these bodies are compact by SLR standards. It also appears that many of the less compact Z/PZ series bodies could control this lens as well. The older SF don't appear capable of this, nor do some of the more traditional MZ/ZX bodies (such as MX-5) that have a dedicated shutter speed dial. Though I don't own a DA21, I would be rather surprised if that lens failed to vignette on a 35mm body though given how poorly the DA12-24 and DA18-55 fare.

 

Are there any compact, non-SLR, third-party K-mount bodies out there?

 

-Andrew

Andrew, you are quite right about the MZ-X0 bodies controlling aperture. I was thinking of one thing and wrote something else, sorry.

 

As you correctly point out, the crippled mount bodies only allow aperture changes from the body (and thus can use the DA 40mm). The ZX-6 and ZX-L can set aperture on the body AND they allow setting aperture on the lens.

 

I never understood why Pentax did not provide this flexibility on their two supposedly higher end models, the MZ-S and the *ist. The MZ-S cannot set aperture from the body and the *ist cannot set it on the lens. But the ZX-6 and the ZX-L proved that it was not hard to do.

Unca,

 

As you mentioned, the way this design change was phased in does indeed seem a little odd. Perhaps target market for the *ist was seen as more likely to be buying new FA-J zooms in a kit and the MZ-S customer was thought to be a more experienced photographer, more likely to already have a sack full of A, F, and FA glass, and therefore likely to rebel against being forced to abandon his aperture ring.

 

In the case of the *ist, perhaps it was also in the interest of saving size and weight, but for the MZ-S you'd think they would have provided the choice of adopting this ergonomic advantage (at least some of us see it that way) of managing aperture on the body. On the other hand, the MZ-S was generally rather unique ergonomically, apparently emulating the more traditional dedicated shutter speed dial and was intended to appeal to the traditional customer.

 

Anyway, I think it's great that this is the extent of the compatibility conversation--when other camera makers have long since abandoned their legacy mounts.

 

-Andrew

The 21mm Limited does not cover the 135 format. It *may* work without visible vigneting at infinity and smaller apertures, but at smaller distances the vigneting is very obvious.

There are no non-SLR K mount bodies. This is because there's no real reason to make one, especially for Pentax (who is noted for makes some of the smallest SLR's around).

 

I'm not aware of any non-SLR bodies in SLR mounts. Because of mirror clearance, SLR mounts have a register that is far longer than you'd want for a non-SLR body. Interchangable lens non-SLR's will almost always use a classic rangefinder mount due to the much shorter register allowing much smaller bodies.