> Are the Sears K Mount lenses worth buying? I wouldn't go out of my way to buy one (but certain ones might be adequate for some particular uses).
> Were they made by Pentax? Specifically the 135mm 2.8? I have never seen any evidence that any of them were made by Pentax. And, especially since they were originally sold as "economical" alternatives to "name-brand" lenses, they would have been unlikely to have the same "premium" qualities anyway. > Are there any 3rd party lens manufacturers that you can recomend > 100%? The short answer - No. (Not 100%.) The longer version (well ~my~ longer version) - 1. I am fond of many (most, actually) of the older Vivitar Series 1 lenses. (However, like many other companies, Vivitar ended up applying the VS1 label to lesser lenses as time went on.) I guess that there are ~very~ few manual focus lenses that carried the VS1 tag that could be considered dogs, and most are gems. 2. The manual focus Tokina AT-X line has always served me well (and, in fact, I was using one of my favorites, the AT-X 100-300/4 for shooting whales just today) (well, make that yesterday - it's now after midnight here - <g>). There are some really nice lenses in this lineup. 3. Tamron has produced some nice lenses, too, although I have less experience with Tamrons (but, the Tamrons I have tried have seemed quite good) (except I haven't found the Ka version of the Adaptall 2 mount to be reliable, even though I like the K version just fine). > And any to totally avoid? I've found that the lineup of "Joe's" lenses is to be avoided... ;-) Fred
