can I use my zoom lens from a 35mm slr camera on a digital camera of the same make?

Question

I have a pentax slr I bought 4 years ago for £199. I also bought a zoom lens for £190. I'm now thinking of going digital but want to know if the lenses are interchangeable

Answer 1

Yes you can. Any Pentax KA or KAF mount lens will fit on either a samsung or pentax digital body. If the lens has a manual aperture ring you may need to set this to the 'A' postion to get full aperture/TTL communication between the lens and body.
You shall however experience a conversion factor of approx 1.5x, so that a lens which has a 35mm focal length of say 100mm-300mm will now have a focal length of approx 150mm-450mm. Great for telephoto shots, not so good for keeping the wide angles.

Fortunately the pentax kits often include an 18mm-55 lens which works out at a good everyday range of 28mm-90mm, so your big tele zoom would be a good compliment to this kit.

If in doubt take your lens into a camera shop and ask to try it out. Many retailers now do internet price matching, so keep the little guy going, don't just buy purely on price, buy on service too.

there are three pentax kits, the 6MP k100d & k110d (the difference being one has anti-shake, handy for your big zoom lens, there is only a small price premium for this very useful function) and the 10MP k10d.

This camera is quite a bit more money than the first two (but no more than comparible cameras from canon or nikon) but has the best colour depth of any digital SLR at any price on the market.

Buy buying into this system you have the clever option of still using film and digital. Please note however that although the pentax 18-55mm lens will mechanically fit on your film body, there will be very pronounced vignetting (darkening of the corners)

Answer 2

Film 35mm SLRs are becoming a rare breed in brand-new cameras. Hence, your best bet is actually a used film SLR, typically to be found on eBay, pawn shops, and Craigslist. For manual focus SLRs, the granddaddy of all student cameras is the Pentax K1000. For autofocus SLRs, you'll want to primarily choose between Nikon, Canon, and Pentax. Minolta made autofocus SLRs too, but ran into quality issues that weren't addressed until their later models. Rather than try to figure out which ones were good vs. bad with them, I am suggesting you stick to Nikon, Canon, or Pentax autofocus SLRs, especially because of the wide availability of good lenses for those cameras. In Nikon, you should look at the N80 or F100 as good autofocus SLRs. The N80 has a built-in popup flash; the F100 does not (since Nikon figures you'd have a separate flash unit if you need it). The N80 was known outside the U.S. as the F80. In Canon, their EOS film lineup is huge. Pentax had their ZX series of cameras. Take a look at the ZX-5. If you're on a budget, the ZX-50 was a good entry-level option. Remember to set some money aside for a good lens for the camera body, unless you get a deal that includes a lens. And get yourself a book which explains camera terminology, so you can understand what people are saying. If money is no object, the best film SLR right now is probably the Nikon F6. However, it's very expensive. By comparison, the Nikon N80 does just about everything the F6 does, but at a fraction of the price.

Answer 3

Pentax marketting says that ALL previous Pentax lenses can be used on Pentax dSLR's. I don't know if all functions remain in service, but at least they should fit. Well, I have some thread-mount Pentax lenses that won't fit, but the answers above detail which ones WILL fit.

See also:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AuhLPGWBKNKvTwRFlerCal3ty6IX?qid=20070421123507AAN9krW&show=7#profile-info-AA11862651

Answer 4

Hi Kate. I have a Pentax K110D, and yes, you can use some of the old lenses. To see what you can use, check out the Pentax website, or try Jessops. Go to your nearest shop, or the Jessops website.

ps. The K110D is GREAT VFM....

Good luck......x

Answer 5

Only for some ranges and brands.

For example Canon EOS series of lenses can be used for both film and digital. But the G series can only be used for some digital bodies. And the previous lenses for the manual focus type cannot be used on the EOS series at all. Nikon lenses can be used on both manual and and digital bodies.

Best to do your homework and check out all the details first.

Answer 6

Generally it is not possible because the CCD imager used for digital is not the same size as the image on 35mm film. It can be anywhere from a little smaller to a whole lot smaller. Some older TV cameras that use a 1.25 inch pickup tube image size could use 35mm film lenses, but the most common CCD imagers now are 0.3 to 0.5 inch size.

Answer 7

Sometimes they may not be. Check the pentax website, or go into a local dealer to check.

Answer 8

only if you get an SLR digital camera, and there aren't that many of them, they are mainly the top end models.