Pentax question - has anybody done this?

[Snake]

I have a 1969-vintage screw-mount Spotmatic which I greatly enjoyed using
back in the good old days. I burned a lot of various-kinds-of-chrome with
it, with some pretty good results. But over the years I didn't have time to
do photgraphy with any degree of seriousness. I currrently have an
aim-and-shoot digital camera and enjoy the convenience of digital
photography. Not to mention the joy of not having to buy film and
processing.

But I plan to retire pretty soon and have a lot more time on my hands.
Aim-and-shoot photgraphy just isn't much fun, and I'll miss the flexibility
of having an aresenal of lenses.

So, I know the Pentax digital SLRs are compatible with the later
bayonet-mount lenses. Adapters are (or were) available to use the old
screw-mount lenses with the later Pentax film camera bodies.

It would follow that one could use old Takumar screw-mount lenses, with the
bayonet adapter, on a Pentax digital SLR body.

My questions are: has anybody tried this? Does it work? How well does it
work? Any loss of functionality, and if so, what?

Snake

[Randall Ainsworth]

In article <F_nxd.1260$c%.251@okepread05>, Snake <[email protected]>
wrote:

> I have a 1969-vintage screw-mount Spotmatic which I greatly enjoyed using
> back in the good old days. I burned a lot of various-kinds-of-chrome with
> it, with some pretty good results. But over the years I didn't have time to
> do photgraphy with any degree of seriousness. I currrently have an
> aim-and-shoot digital camera and enjoy the convenience of digital
> photography. Not to mention the joy of not having to buy film and
> processing.

Hey...I've got a 1969 Spotmatic too that still works. Have to use the
lenses on manual because the pin that stops them down is sluggish. But
other than that, it works great.

I went digital last year and went with the 10D. Been a medium format
kinda guy through the years and since I had no allegiance to any
reasonably current 35mm, went with the Canon.

[Gaderian]

Snake wrote:

> I have a 1969-vintage screw-mount Spotmatic which I greatly enjoyed
> using back in the good old days. I burned a lot of
> various-kinds-of-chrome with it, with some pretty good results. But
> over the years I didn't have time to do photgraphy with any degree of
> seriousness. I currrently have an aim-and-shoot digital camera and
> enjoy the convenience of digital photography. Not to mention the joy
> of not having to buy film and processing.
>
> But I plan to retire pretty soon and have a lot more time on my hands.
> Aim-and-shoot photgraphy just isn't much fun, and I'll miss the
> flexibility of having an aresenal of lenses.
>
> So, I know the Pentax digital SLRs are compatible with the later
> bayonet-mount lenses. Adapters are (or were) available to use the old
> screw-mount lenses with the later Pentax film camera bodies.
>
> It would follow that one could use old Takumar screw-mount lenses,
> with the bayonet adapter, on a Pentax digital SLR body.
>
> My questions are: has anybody tried this? Does it work? How well does
> it work? Any loss of functionality, and if so, what?
>
> Snake

I too have a few old screw mount lenses from an old Spotmatic but I never
bought the adapter to use them on my new Pentax *ist DSLR. I've heard from
a few people you can get the older lenses to work with the adapter but you
miss out on some of the new features the *ist has to offer. Lucky for me I
have enough of the newer AF lenses from my Pentax MZ60 film camera and they
work fine with all of the features on the *ist.

If you're going to jump to a digital SLR most of the bundled packages come
with a lens anyway. I went to the Pentax bcecause I had 3 newer Pentax
lenses and other Pentax accessories. Otherwise I'd still be deciding
between Canon, Nikon, Pentax, etc.

[Charles Robinson]

Snake <[email protected]> wrote:
:
: So, I know the Pentax digital SLRs are compatible with the later
: bayonet-mount lenses. Adapters are (or were) available to use the old
: screw-mount lenses with the later Pentax film camera bodies.
:
: It would follow that one could use old Takumar screw-mount lenses, with the
: bayonet adapter, on a Pentax digital SLR body.
:
: My questions are: has anybody tried this? Does it work? How well does it
: work? Any loss of functionality, and if so, what?

It works as well as the screwmounts ever did. I tried it with one old
screwmount lens right after I got my DS.

You have to go "full manual" for exposure - if you're stopping down to
f/16, you'll be metering and focusing with the lens actually stopped down.

Other than that, it works just fine. You might be annoyed by the 1.5x
crop factor, though - your nice neat 80mm portrait lens turns into a 120mm
telephoto... your 28mm medium-wide turns into a 34mm normal lens. Great
if you like telephoto, and not so great if you are a fan of wide angles!

-Charles

--
Charles Robinson
Minneapolis, MN
[email][email protected][/email]
[url]http://www.visi.com/~charlesr[/url]

[John Francis]

In article <F_nxd.1260$c%.251@okepread05>, Snake <[email protected]> wrote:

>I have a 1969-vintage screw-mount Spotmatic which I greatly enjoyed using
>back in the good old days. I burned a lot of various-kinds-of-chrome with
>it, with some pretty good results. But over the years I didn't have time to
>do photgraphy with any degree of seriousness. I currrently have an
>aim-and-shoot digital camera and enjoy the convenience of digital
>photography. Not to mention the joy of not having to buy film and
>processing.
>
>But I plan to retire pretty soon and have a lot more time on my hands.
>Aim-and-shoot photgraphy just isn't much fun, and I'll miss the flexibility
>of having an aresenal of lenses.
>
>So, I know the Pentax digital SLRs are compatible with the later
>bayonet-mount lenses. Adapters are (or were) available to use the old
>screw-mount lenses with the later Pentax film camera bodies.
>
>It would follow that one could use old Takumar screw-mount lenses, with the
>bayonet adapter, on a Pentax digital SLR body.
>
>My questions are: has anybody tried this? Does it work? How well does it
>work? Any loss of functionality, and if so, what?

Several people have done this. It works just fine.

There is just one potential loss of functionality for a screw-mount
lens used on a K-mount body (be that one of the latest digital bodies,
or any one of the K-mount film bodies). If you have one of the later
auto-Takumar lenses that was capable of full-aperture metering with a
Spotmatic-F, you lose that ability. If you're used to one of the older
Spotmatic bodies (such as, for example, the 1969 model your mention),
you're already used to stop-down metering.

Obviously you don't magically gain functionality that the lenses don't
posess - you don't get auto-focus with those manual focus lenses, and
the camera body is unable to select the appropriate aperture. But you
do get focus confirmation, and the camera can be set to pick a shutter
speed automatically based on the selected aperture.

In fact the screwmount lenses work rather better on the digital bodies
than do some of the intermediate K-mount lenses (those without an "A"
setting on the aperture ring).

There are some wonderful old screwmount Takumar lenses; I'm sure you'd
enjoy using them on a digital body (you can even get an adapter to use
them on a Canon body, but I can't speak to how well that works).

One thing you might not like, though, is the lack of focussing aids
(such as split screens or microprisms) in the viewfinder of modern
cameras. You're reduced to focussing on the simple matte screen.
Fortunately the Pentax digitals have a much better viewfinder than
those in the competition for manual focussing - larger & brighter.