Can old lenses be used with new digital cameras.

Hello, all!

Are the new (digital) cameras compatible with lenses used for older 35mm
film cameras?

I am specifically talking about a Ricoh XRP camera I bought about 20 years
ago. The TP lens I bought for it is a "Rikenon P Zoom 1:3.9 70~210 mm
Macro. (58 mm).

Is there a brand of digital camera that will work with this lens? Or has
lens technology developed so much in the last 20 years that it is not worth
the bother? I did a bit of web searching last week, and it is apparently an
"RK" type mount. Is there some kind of adapter that can interconnect old
mounts to new ones? (I know I can always use duct tape...)

 

rk is ricoh's variant on the pentax k mount and it's no longer fully
compatible with pentax k. althought it will fit, if you mount it on a
recent pentax camera, you will likely be unable to remove it without a
lot of surgery. in other words, it's not compatible.

 

RK is Ricoh's variant on Pentax's K Mount, which is still
used by all Pentax and Samsung DSLRs.

RK lenses though have a small pin that is used to tell the
body when the lens is in the "P" setting (Pentax lenses have
an "A" setting, but communicate this electrically). This pin
_may_ foul on the auto-focus drive shaft when the lens is
being removed which would be a big problem. (My one RK lens,
a 35-70, has never been a drama). The pin can be removed if
you are concerned, although it won't meter automatically on
your old film camera if you do that.

When using these old lenses on modern Pentax DSLR bodies,
you only have stop-down metering available. The procedure on
the K10D is to have the camera in the M mode, set the
aperture on the lens, then use DOF preview to stop down the
lens and take a light reading. Pressing the Green button
while the lens is stopped down will automatically set an
appropriate shutter speed.

As for whether using old lenses on a new body is worth it...
bear in mind that a modern lens will give you full auto
metering, and full auto-focus. Manual focus can sometimes be
difficult to use on a DSLR. But to offset that, some of
these old lenses have superb optics that are a match for
pretty much anything modern. If you already own the old lens
it doesn't cost you anything - replacing it would set you
back several hundred (or more) dollars, just to get the
convenience of auto. Trade that off also against whether
having to buy an appropriate body will limit you in your
choices (Although the K100D and K10D are fantastic cameras,
and new models are apparently just around the corner which
should be even better).

 

Ricoh's RK mount is a licensed version of the Pentax K-mount ... as such
any Pentax DSLR (or Samsung DSLR - they also use the Pentax K-mount)
should be able to use the lens, although I don't know why you'd want to,
it's not a very good lens.