Dogman
Mentor
Shab, you do good work with everything IMO. I know nothing of current Pentax although it was the first 35mm camera I ever used 50 years ago. I use Fuji and Nikon today and I love the old Nikkor manual focus lenses...also some of the AF lenses. And Nikon bodies? Well mine are all older than the D850 but they're good enough for me.
Lenses in the Nikon 21mm and 35mm range you want are all pretty great, again IMO. The current Nikkor 20/1.8 AF-S G series lens is excellent although it is very plasticky and feels cheap. Image quality is great however. I also like the older 20/2.8 AF. It's an older AF lens that focuses by a screw drive with the motor in the camera body. It takes a bit of getting used to but it's also a great lens. Older manual focus lenses were built better using metal instead of plastic. As for 35mm, Nikon had a range of 35/2 lenses that used the same optical formula for decades, beginning as manual focus and moving into AF as well. They are superb. I'm not that fond of the current 35/1.8 AF-S lens but it's good for most purposes although, again, lots of plastic in the design. Nikon also had a wonderful 35/1.4 manual focus lens and now makes an AF 35/1.4 but I know nothing about its performance. One of the great things about Nikon is that up until they switched to mirrorless bodies their old lenses would fit directly on their cameras (with a few exceptions in the lower priced range). This gives a huge selection of lenses to consider, many relatively low priced.
Lenses in the Nikon 21mm and 35mm range you want are all pretty great, again IMO. The current Nikkor 20/1.8 AF-S G series lens is excellent although it is very plasticky and feels cheap. Image quality is great however. I also like the older 20/2.8 AF. It's an older AF lens that focuses by a screw drive with the motor in the camera body. It takes a bit of getting used to but it's also a great lens. Older manual focus lenses were built better using metal instead of plastic. As for 35mm, Nikon had a range of 35/2 lenses that used the same optical formula for decades, beginning as manual focus and moving into AF as well. They are superb. I'm not that fond of the current 35/1.8 AF-S lens but it's good for most purposes although, again, lots of plastic in the design. Nikon also had a wonderful 35/1.4 manual focus lens and now makes an AF 35/1.4 but I know nothing about its performance. One of the great things about Nikon is that up until they switched to mirrorless bodies their old lenses would fit directly on their cameras (with a few exceptions in the lower priced range). This gives a huge selection of lenses to consider, many relatively low priced.
Zuiko-logist
Well-known
Is the new 21mm Ltd full frame?
agentlossing
Well-known
Yes, all of the FA Limiteds are full-frame. It's a substantially different and bigger lens than the DA Limited 21mm f3.2 (which is a cool, tiny little lens, very fun to use). The FA21 is outside of my price range, personally.
Freakscene
Obscure member
Just note that there is a range of HD Limited lenses for APS-C sensors: 15, 21, 35, 40 and 70mm.
There is an HD 21/3.2 for 24x36 sensors and a DA 21/3.2 for APS-C sensors. Don’t get confused.
These lenses are all excellent, and stick to Pentax’s tradition of having a ‘familial look’. The new 24x36 lenses and the red ring APS-C lenses have the newest coating technology: About HD Coating / Lenses / Products | RICOH IMAGING Hoya, who owns Pentax, has a lot of really great technology for element manufacture and coating.
Marty
ellisson
Well-known
The Konica Minolta 7D was really nice, one of my favorites. The user interface was copied by many because of its straight-forward simplicity and button and dial layout for the most frequently used functions. Transitioned by Sony to their alpha cameras, but never as user friendly as the 7D. Still great fun to shoot with!
Freakscene
Obscure member
Unlike me, who is clearly still confused.
Pentax HD Pentax DA 21mm f/3.2 AL Limited Lens is for APS-C sensors.
Pentax HD PENTAX-D FA 21mm f/2.4ED Limited DC WR Lens is for 24x36mm (“full frame”) sensors.
Naming things is hard. No-one is as confusing as Kodak was, when, for instance two completely different films were called “Tri-X”, but sometimes Pentax’s naming is confusing.
HD indicates the new coatings.
Marty
agentlossing
Well-known
DA=APS-C, FA=FF. The only really confusing thing is that the newest line of FA lenses is called the D FA, but that's really an abbreviation for "Pentax-D FA" i.e. Pentax followed by a letter (see Pentax-M, Pentax-A, Pentax-F, etc.). Look for either the DA or FA label and you'll immediately know what format it's for.
Incidentally the K-1 has an automatic APS-C crop mode you can enable for shooting with DA lenses, plus they give you the full ability to shoot DA lenses full frame and get all the vignetting you'd expect (on most DA lenses, a few actually cover the full frame and don't vignette when stopped down). Add to that you can adapt the 645 series of medium format lenses to the K-1 if you want!
Incidentally the K-1 has an automatic APS-C crop mode you can enable for shooting with DA lenses, plus they give you the full ability to shoot DA lenses full frame and get all the vignetting you'd expect (on most DA lenses, a few actually cover the full frame and don't vignette when stopped down). Add to that you can adapt the 645 series of medium format lenses to the K-1 if you want!
AAlfano
Well-known
Pentax also still sells adapters to use M42 and 6x7/67 lenses on K-mount cameras.