henkc

Looking through a selection of pictures taken with my K100D and MX, my wife

raised the opinion that pictures on film have qualities you don't capture

digitally. I made the link that most of the K100D pictures had been taken with

the kit 18-55 (a surprisingly good lens, given that it's a cheap zoom, IMHO),

while those of the MX were taken with an M 50mm f1.7 and an M 28mm f3.5.

 

This morning I set up for a brick wall test with the three lenses on the

K100D. Without positing lots of pictures of bricks to debate, my verdict is

that the 28mm f3.5 is the pick of the bunch, with the 50mm f1.7 looking damn

good and the kit zoom performing surprisingly well.

 

Now the question. What would people see as the ideal standard prime for a

pentax dslr. Ideally, it should also be useable on a film body. One

possibility I've thought of is the FA 35mm f2.

 

Henk

I read somewhere that the 9's came before the 4's. I'd be interested to know about the MX I just bought.

 

I'd also be interested to know whether photographers are as obsessed with serial numbers as musicians. You get nuts who are more interested in the serial number on a horn than in how well it plays.

 

Thanks

 

Henk

On lenses with an automatic diaphragm it works as with any other lens. On the older manual lenses, stopped down metering is possible in manual mode. It works fine.

I occasionally use an older SMC M 1.7/50 on a K100D. It works fine, as a manual focus, manual exposure lens. The autofocus system still tells you when it thinks you are in focus, so all in all, it's worth keeping.

Neither camera will make you a better (or worse) photographer. Neither will going straight to digital. I've just bought a manual everything film camera (a Pentax MX) in an attempt to slow down and think a bit more. Pentax have maintained their lens mount, so a lot of the newer lenses fit the older bodies and vice versa. This isn't the case with the AE-1.

 

Both are great cameras. See what you can get in good condition.

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I'm struggling to get to grips with crop factors and effective focal length,

with one simple question. I've recently bought a K100D, with a 1.5 crop

factor. This, I am told, "multiplies the focal length" of my existing lenses

from film days by 1.5. Obviously it doesn't, it crops the image, so that a

50mm lens has the FOV of a 75mm. What about perspective? does the cropping out

of the edges of the image also affect our perception of perspective, so that

the 50mm lens is indeed a short telephoto, or is it simply a cropped standard

lens?

 

Henk