Five Frames With A SMC Pentax-A 50mm 1:2, The Penultimate Choice

Re-Living the CCD Sensor - Image making with a vintage SMC Pentax-A 50mm 1:2 with a 10MP CCD sensor Pentax K-m digital SLR.

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My effort with the 'Re-living the CCS Sensor' series saw me going through a range of vintage digital cameras, cameras that were in production more than 10 years ago, fitted with CCD sensors, which was then the old standard for camera sensors from the early 80s till the late 2000s. For a kit setup, the Pentax K-m (K2000 in the US), and the SMC Pentax-A 50mm 1:2 manual focus prime is my penultimate selection.

Pentax K-m, SMC Pentax A 50mm 1:2

CCD sensors are known to produce high-quality images with low noise, better color accuracy and uniformity, higher sensitivity, and with a look and feel that are different from CMOS sensors, with some saying that the images are very much film-like. Though more expensive to manufacture CCD sensors still have many uses, including machine vision, astronomy, food science, as well as life sciences, and medical applications.

The real advantage to photo enthusiasts is having the option to choose from a range of forms and functional capabilities, from ultra-compact travel zooms to superzoom digital bridge cameras, and to the ubiquitous digital SLR cameras. Prices vary, but you may find them costing lower than comparative film cameras, where you will have the added saving on film, film development, time cost, or the cost of acquiring an advanced digital camera that may prove a mite too hard to handle as well.

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Five Frames With A SMC Pentax-A 50mm 1:2, The Green

Re-Living The CCD Sensor - Five Frames With A SMC Pentax-A 50mm 1:2, and a Pentax K-M Digital, the garden green.

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Testing the Pentax K-m with a manual focus prime lens here, with the SMC Pentax-A 50mm 1:2, a lightweight plastic-bodied lens manufactured by Pentax from 1985 to 1998. The series-A lenses by Pentax introduced the 'automatic' aperture settings capability of Pentax K-mount lenses. The lenses still had the aperture ring, which can be set manually, and they also had an 'A' setting, which allowed the camera to control the aperture automatically.

Pentax K-m, SMC-Pentax-A 50mm 1:2

On the APS-C sensor K-m, the SMC Pentax-A 50mm 1:2 is an equivalent of a 75mm short telephoto lens. When mounted with the A-switch set, the K-m will trigger the inquest for a focal length input which, once set, will permit you to use the camera in its various exposure modes, with the lens triggering the In-Focus button intermittently to indicate that the subject in the frame is in focus. Focusing is still manual though.

Testing was done among the greens of my mini garden, and as you can see, even when the shots were taken wide open, the images were as sharp as you wanted them to be. The color rendition is great and the contrast is excellent. Focusing is smooth, and with the aperture ring set to the 'A' mode, there is no more reason for you to do any adjustments to the plastic aperture ring itself. This lens has an overall rating of 8+ on PentaxForums, but personally, I'll give it a solid 10.

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