Some of the best and sharpest lenses for Pentax were made in Japan in the 70's and 80's. Granted there's no fancy autofocus systems on them, but that's a benefit too since there's fewer things to go wrong. If you chose the right ones (KA Mount) they work fine on all later Pentaxes since they have an 'Auto' aperture mode on them.
First is a late 70's 50mm f1.7 which I found for $ixty some in what appears to be really good condition. These things are getting well known for being fast and sharp, though most of the attention goes to the f1.4 version of the lens (which fetches at least twice as much money) Buying a new one will set you back near $500, though it will have autofocus and somewhat better edge sharpness and flare reduction. Since we're using a smaller than 35mm (24mm APS-C) sensor the edge sharpness and vignetting problems don't concern us as much, and the f1.7 had less problems with that anyway. I got a lens hood to help with the flare problems and the 'effective' 75mm focal length with the smaller sensor should work well for indoor portrait work and outside for landscapes. This is probably the only lens I'll have that can out-resolve the 15MegaPixel sensor. On the others the lens is generally the limiting factor
The second 'find' is a Tokina 70-210mm f3.5 zoom. This is reported to be the sharpest of the aftermarket zooms in this range, which was the most popular zoom range back in the day. Would you believe 45 bucks?
I haven't got it yet so we'll see how she does. Since this has an effective range of 110-320mm on this camera, it should complete the lens' collection we'll be carting around (18-320mm)
We'll post samples once everything gets here and tested and cleaned.
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