confused on which adapter to get for which lenses

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alright, i'm trying to find out what all lenses will work with my pentax k1000. i know there's adapters out there, like the adaptall, pk-mount, t-mount, etc, but i'm not sure which does what. i know a pk-mount fits a k series camera, but what the hell does that mean? so it fits my camera, but what lenses fit IT. i wanted to get this sigma lens, but it was for m-42 mount cameras. is there an adapter i can get to fit it to my camera? thanks for any help, jj

-- joshua jones (nope@uhuh.com), January 21, 2001

Answers

Your K1000 is a K mount or PK mount (same thing). That means that it will take any K mount lens which includes PK, KA, KM, KF, KAF, KR and probably a few others in that series. Each one of these can accommodate a few additional features. Such as the KA will allow Aperture Priority automatic exposure with cameras that can do that. The KR has special features for Ricoh cameras and the KF will do autofocus with AF cameras. With your K1000 you can forget all that because it is a basic manual exposure camera (and a good one at that) and it will do all it is capable of doing with any of them.

You might want to shy away from most autofocus lenses though because they usually have a very fast focus ring that is (most likely) poorly dampened. You can still use them, but focusing with them is a delicate operation. Besides, they usually cost more.

The Pentax Screw Mount or M42 (same thing again) is Pentax's old system before the K mount. It is not capable of doing open aperture metering, so you would have to stop the aperture down to the taking f:stop and do your metering. Then you could open back up (via its so called "auto" function) and focus before taking your picture. You can use these lenses as well with a PK to screw mount adapter ($20) but you will not only have to meter stopped down but also the so called "auto" feature is not enabled so you will want to focus before stopping down.

The T Mount lenses are generic lenses that need a T mount ring ($20) for whatever camera they are mounted to. They have no automation at all so you meter and shoot in a stopped down mode. Which is the same thing you have to do when mounting a M42 lens.

-- Jim Strutz (jimstrutz@juno.com), January 21, 2001.


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