Pentax K-mount lenses

K mount dates from 1975 and Pentax — now Ricoh Imaging — is the one manufacturer still releasing new DSLRs. Almost every K-mount lens ever made will physically mount on a current body.

Backward compatibility is the whole point

Manual-focus K-mount lenses from the 1970s and 1980s work on a K-3 Mark III with stop-down metering, and in-body stabilization works with them because the body asks you for the focal length. Nothing else in current production does this.

A small modern catalogue

New lens releases are infrequent and third-party autofocus support has largely stopped. The Limited primes — 21mm, 43mm, 77mm — are distinctive, compact and have no real equivalent elsewhere.

Buy used, and expect to

The used market is where K mount lives. That is a strength for price and a weakness for availability: many of the best options have not been made for years.