MISSION:

Snapshot Voyager is about my own personal photography journey. I am always looking to try something new, inquisitive as to how it works, and to the end results I might achieve.

Tuesday 18 September 2012

Pentax 21mm f3.2 AF Pancake purchase



I don't normally purchase newer Pentax lenses, but this was an exception.  My Dad is a Pentax user and he had been looking for a Pentax 21mm f3.2 pancake wide angle.  It turns out one of my camera friends had one he was looking to sell, so I traded my large format Ansco 5x7 body plus some cash for the lens.  

Its really amazing how small this lens is, and is totally dwarfed by my Sigma 20mm f1.8, and smaller even than my Nikon 20mm f4..  It's about the same size as a Nikon 45mm f2.8 Ai-P pancake.

I will send it to Australia shortly, but I decided I wanted to try it out.  I had a look on craigslist and found a mid 1980s Pentax SFX - an early AF film body.  After some brief negotiation, I ended up getting the body, a flash and a 2x teleconverter for the cost of the lithium battery ($5), so no great expenditure.  However it did take me an hour and a half to get it as I got stuck in traffic.

I shot a roll of film, and the camera and lens seem to work just fine, but there is no way to manually adjust the aperture as there is no aperture ring on this lens.  I also tried out a manual Ricoh 50mm f2 lens on the camera, which also worked well.  The two lenses bring up different menus on the screen which you can select from.  Essentially the manual lens only works in Aperture Priority (A) and full Manual (M), while with the AF you can select program with several different sub modes such as sports and landscape.

All in all, a couple good finds and I look forward to getting the film back.

Nikon FE-2  - Nikon 24mm f2

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