More than 20 years ago, I bought a Pentax Program Plus with a SMC-A 50mm f/1.7 lens. I loved that camera and used it for more than a decade. The Program Plus produced many memorable photos that I will always cherish. I later traded it in for a Canon Elan II and since then, I have been a Canon user, but in my heart, I have always like the Pentax products, and probably always will. Well made, small, but very functional.

My brother-in-law got me this *ist DL camera so cheap that I could not refuse! Back in 2001, I paid 4 times more than this camera for my 3 MP Canon G1 Point & Shoot. Thanks Kien! Now I can use all the K-mount lenses I have around. So far, I like this little camera. Sure, it's no Canon 1D, and it's painful to shoot RAW consecutively, since it only has 3 frame buffer. It also takes a while for the camera to empty the buffer to the card. But, I like the image quality. ISO 800 is actually similar to my 1D.

The part I like the most is how manual white balance can be set so easily. You just select manual white balance option, point to a white (better yet, 18% gray) object, and click the shutter. Voila! Customer white balance is set. On Canon cameras, I don't know what the designers were thinking, but to use custome white balance, you need to first shoot a picture of white (or gray) object, go to the manus and select custom white balance, and select the picture you just took as the refence. Too many steps that are unneccessary.

So far, Lenses I have tried on and works well:
* SMC-A 50mm f/1.7
* SMC-A 28mm f/2.8
* SMC-M 135mm f/3.5
* Tamron SP 90mm f/2.5 with KA adapter
* Tamron SP 24mm f/2.5 with KA adapter
* Takumar S-M-C 100mm f/4 Macro (M42 or Screw Mount) with adapter
* Takumar SMC 55mm f/1.8 M42 mount with adapter
* Takumar S-M-C 50m f/1.4 M42 mount with adapter. This lens seems to slightly front focus.

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