My Favourite lens - Pentax Asahi SMC 55mm f1.8 (manual focus)

My Favourite lens - Pentax Asahi SMC 55mm f1.8 (manual focus), originally uploaded by Vanessa Pike-Russell.

One of the reasons I bought a Pentax istDL DSLR in February was because of this lens - a 50mm f1.8 prime lens that was attached to a well-used Pentax KM film camera purchased in the late 60's - before I was born.

I love this lens. It has such an amazing feel to it. It is a manual focus lens which means that I have to adjust the aperture (eg. f1.8-f22), shutter speed (eg. 1/4 second) and turn the barrel to focus on the subject. Normally I would let the Sigma 18-55mm kit lens do the work for me but the times when I want to take an unforgettable photo I switch back to the SMC Pentax 1:1.8/55 manual lens. It may result in a few blurry photos where my focus was slightly off but the rest of the photos well make up for it.

One day I will purchase the auto focus version of this lens but I will always be fond of this lens that has taken me from days of film slr (Pentax Spotmatic and Pentax KM) and now into the digital age.