I am planning to buy a camera and I am looking at various brands, Pentax being one of them. I have looked very carefully at the lenses from the Pentax website. I was wondering if anyone in this forum knows of another brand, or what company makes lenses for Pentax... and perhaps a opinion of the quality of these lenses versus Pentax lenses.

Thanks and all the best.

Ned Brockwell
Jyväskylä, Finland

In general, Pentax lenses are very good (though there are some clinkers), but they can be expensive, and the selection isn't the greatest. There are three main third party lens manufacturers, Sigma, Tamron and Tokina, and they all make lenses for Pentax dSLRs. As with Pentax lenses, there are some gems and some clinkers from each of them. Hoya, the company that owns Pentax, also owns Tokina, and Tokina makes some of Pentax' lenses.

One of the really nice things about Pentax slrs is that you can use any pentax mount lens, even back to the M42 screw mount manual lenses, if you don't mind using manual focus, and sometimes manual aperture. The cameras are configured to meter with the lenses, and give a focus confirmation when manually focusing. So there are a lot of really nice lenses available. If you have questions about a specific lens, the Pentax Lens forum is the place to ask. Somebody there will probably have experience with it, and everyone is happy to share their knowledge.

brian