13 Facts About Pentax lenses

Pentax lenses saw many feature changes to answer the market, such as: incorporating "Auto-Aperture" with the M42, the light weight and compactness with the 'M' series, Aperture Priority overrides with the 'A' series, and Auto-Focus with the 'F' series.

All of these Pentax lenses have an autofocus feature, either operated from the camera body or from an internal SDM motor.

Pentax lenses's had confidence in the technology and demonstrated this by keeping a lock on the patent for quite a while.

The Pentax lenses had an aperture ring, and thus the aperture could be set manually, but they had an "A" mode, which allowed the camera to control the aperture automatically.

DA* Pentax lenses have higher quality optics and feature a higher level of weather sealing than most DA Pentax lenses .

The DA* Pentax lenses are more expensive and generally feature improved light transmission and larger aperture openings for better low light performance.

The new HD Pentax lenses are available in both silver and black, as opposed to only black.

The largest lens produced by Pentax was the Reflex 2000mm, with non-mirrored lenses available up to the A* 1200mm.

Pentax lenses provided premium focal lengths well beyond 1200mm, such as their 3800mm through the Pentax lenses telescope division.

Some FA and FA* Pentax lenses did come with an integrated motor and two additional electronic contacts for power zoom functionality.

Pentax lenses-developed SDM autofocus systems, with SDM standing for "Supersonic Drive Motor", departs from the previous Pentax lenses system which utilizes a screw-drive autofocus motor inside the camera body.

Cameras with a "crippled K-Mount" cannot read the set f-stop of K and M series Pentax lenses and must stop-down momentarily to meter in case the adjusted aperture is a stopped down one.

Pentax KAF3 lenses do only have an own internal autofocus motor and are not fully compatible with some early DSLR models like the *istD.