Lens for my new/old Pentax K-1000

[Mike Kennedy]

Greetings All,
I recently traded my accordion for this camera and the world of music is better off because of it.I have 2 very nice lenses,a 28mm and 50mm,but need a medium zoom or telephoto to complete the package.Any suggestions? Almost forgot,PRICE IS AN OBJECT!
Thanks Much,
Mike

 

[David H. Bebbington]

The 135 mm F3.5 Pentax M lens is not to be sneezed at, dealer price in near-mint condition should be £40 - £50. I particularly like the Pentax 200 mm f4 M lens - I had one that was great, sold it, regretted it, and bought another that was equally great. One will probably cost £60. For about half this cost, lots of zooms by Tamron, Sigma, etc.

 

[Mongo]

If you're interested in quality, skip the zooms. Zoom lenses from the '70s and '80s were notoriosly bad, and unlike a fine wine, time hasn't made them better.

The SMC Takumar fixed focal length lenses have some of the best reputations in the world of 35mm photography. Search the web; there are plenty of sites with reviews of all of the Pentax lenses. A good lens in the 100mm or 135mm range would cost less and seriously outperform any zoom lens frm that era.

Unfortunately, the price of Pentax K-mount lenses has gone up lately since Pentax released the *ist-D digicams. Once people found out they could use these great old lenses on their digicams, the lenses started selling very quickly. Check KEH.com for a good idea of what the lenses are selling for these days.

(You might look for an old Pentax screwmount lens and a screwmount-to-K mount adaptor. These work well, and the price of the screwmount lenses hasn't soared like the price of the K mount lenses.)

 

[titrisol]

Get a 105 or a 135 Takumar as your teles. You can't go wrong with those.

Now if you rpefer a 70-200 zoom, look for a vivitar series 1 in pentax mount or a tamrom (latest crop is best)

 

[julio F]

If you have a 28 and a 50 the other lens to have is a telephoto. I was in exactly the same position many years ago and bought an 80-200 zoom. It all depends on what you shoot.

if you do not like zooms get two primes: one 85 or 100 or 135 and another 200 or 300. And of course a good tripod to go with the long lenses. You will need it.

 

[Claire Senft]

Sounds like you could make very good use out of a 105mm F2.8 multi-coated lens. The 100-105mm lenses by almost all manufacturers are of very nice quality and reasonable prices. They are an extremely useful focal length. A f2 85mm is also very nice to have. If you can find a Pentax K mount Macro with floating elements I could be the best choice of all.

 

[eatfrog]

I have a SMC 105/2.8 and a SMC-M 135/3.5, they are both great, but the 105 was 3 times as expensive as the 135. All 100mm lenses are usually that. 85mm ones aren't cheap either.

But all things considering, the lenses are just superb, and new Canon L lenses cost 10x as much so..

 

[Russ - SVP]

If you're interested in quality, skip the zooms. Zoom lenses from the '70s and '80s were notoriosly bad, and unlike a fine wine, time hasn't made them better.
QUOTE]

Mongo

I have to disagree with you on this one. There are some zooms from the mid 70's and on, that are very good. Check out the older Vivitar Series 1 and Kiron zooms. They hold their own against the quality zooms of today. I've used them professionally for 25+ years now, and they deliver the goods. However, there were, and still are some third party zooms that I would never use.

Kiron Kid