Pentax PK Mount Lenses on DSLR

One of the great features of Pentax DSLRs are their ability to easily make use of older Pentax PK-mount lenses and the plentiful 3rd-party PK-mount lenses.

Older Lens on Pentax DSLR

To take a photo you need to use an ancient procedure known as "stop-down metering". But the camera makes this a piece of cake.

1. Set the aperture ring on the lens to the desired f-stop.

2. Press "AE-L" button (or the "green" button depending on your camera) to stop down the lens and take a meter reading. The camera will set the shutter speed automatically.

3. Adjust shutter speed if you wish.

4. Focus.

5. Hit the shutter.

Easy huh? It's only two steps more than using an automatic lens. The body makes it trivial by metering through the lens for us.

Another cool thing is that you get a focus indicator in the viewfinder, so it's not so difficult to focus after all.

And as an additional bonus you can "trap focus" with some lenses. Change the switch to "AF". Now hold down the shutter button and twist the lens. When the image is in focus, the camera takes the photo! This doesn't work on every manual lens, but it's a nice trick when it does.

No other manufacturer provides so much assistance to photographers experimenting with older lenses. Go Pentax!