The lens that came with Dad’s Pentax K1000 camera when he bought it back in the 80’s was a Pentax-M 1:2 50mm. Is it the best lens I have in the house right now? I think it might be. It’s the only non-zoom lens I have access too and it’s by far the biggest aperture. Do those things make it the best lens? I haven’t a clue.
After testing out the Pentax K to Nikon F mount adapter I bought from Amazon with my DSLR and Dad’s other lens, I dared to take the 50mm off of Dad’s camera and put it onto my D90. I took a few test pics in the cellar at the start of my lunch break. Then I went to the store to get a Powerball ticket (1.2 billion dollars? Okay), and then went to the back yard. I only took a few pics and I had to use the light meter in my iPhone, but here’s what I have.
This is the first pic and it looks okay, right?
This one is okay too. I was focusing on the Union Jack and the aperture was pretty wide so things off to the sides might be a little soft focused.
Scenes from a cart corral. This is through the car’s windshield and I had the ISO set wrong on the camera so it took a few tweaks on the lens settings to get a decently exposed shot.
After fixing the aperture and using a high f-stop, I got this. The focus is okay here, right?
Finally, I opened the aperture as wide as it could get and took this. Dig that crazy blurry background and all of those dots of light. That’s what they mean when they talk about bokeh, right? How much ass does that kick? The foreground focus is a little iffy because the wind picked up after I set the focus and moved the near bird feeder around which messed things up a little… but that background! Epic!
Now that I know I can put Dad’s lenses on my DSLR I will put one of my lenses back on because auto focus is my friend because my vision is crappy and gets worse by the day. It’s really cool to know I can do this though. I am pleased. Squee, babie.
Inside the Red Head's Head 