I have a bunch of lenses from my old Pentax K1000 camera. I want a digital camera and was thinking of either Nikon or Canon. Is the Pentax *ist DS Digital SLR Camera that much worse than those that it outweighs having lenses for it?
It's a GREAT camera - and I have few complaints except that I wish I had got the ist*D instead (pro model).
Getting the old k1000 manual lenses to work with the new camera wasnt that easy - I had to read the manual a couple of times and change the settings in my camera to allow for the use of these older (manual focus) lenses. I feel this setting shoudl have been there out-of-the-box. pointless otherwise.
Which brings me to my second complaint. Even with something as basic as the pentax K1000 there was a light meter to get an idea of what you were about to shoot. Not anymore. when you place that old lense on this new body you better have a light metter in hand becuase the camera light meter will not work at all unless you use a newer lense.
I dont consider this a problem - but I dont plan to use those older lenses very much due to the hassle.
The question is, are you willing to put with the hassle of trying to make your old Pentax lenses work with your new digital camera? As zagdub said the metering will not work. Is that worth it for you? Here you are with a fancy new digital body but you cannot make the new features work just because you are using older lenses.
The question that comes to my mind is are those lenses worth the hassle of making them work? I know there's a sizable contingent of Canon shooters that are currently in love with older Zeiss and Contax lenses that are supposed to be fantastic.
There are adapters for Pentax to EOS (Canon autofocus) mounts if you really want to go that way. From my understanding the meter is supposed to work, however you obviously won't get autofocus & cannot control aperture from the body.
In the end I think it's probably a wiser choice to just start fresh with a modern AF system, in which case the whole market is now open.