Smallish 50ish slr lens

[dosilverhalide]

I'm having a Pentax sv, cla'd soon and then I want to put the smallest 50ish lens on it to have a small carry around camera. Any one have any suggestions for a lens. It can be made any where J.

[ME Super]

Screw Mount or K-Mount? If you're looking for K-mount, the M-series lenses are designed to go with the smaller M-series bodies (but will work on the K-series as well). I have a 50mm f/2 M-series lens that's pretty small. There's also a 43mm pancake lens in K-mount that will work on the film SLRs, and it's even smaller.

I'm not familiar with the screw mount lenses, sorry I am no help there. I know there are adapters that can be used to put a screw mount lens on a K mount body, but I don't know if there are any that will do the opposite.

[dosilverhalide]

I guess I should have said the camera is a M42 screw mount

[bobwysiwyg]

The SV was my first 'real' 35mm. I still have it and it works fine. Focusing in lower light is difficult for me these days. It's fitted with a 55mm f1.8 Super-Takumar. A real solid feeling little jewel of a camera.

[dosilverhalide]

I like your portfolio. We take pictures of the same subjects, except fewer snow pictures for me. J

[tony lockerbie]

Not a lot of really small 50's in that mount, but there is a CZJ Tessar F2.8 that is very compact, it was made for the Praktica cameras. If you want to keep it Pentax (and why wouldn't you) you could find a Super Takumar 55mm 1.8 that is a great lens and should be very cheap. The 50mm 1.4 is also a great lens and really no bigger than the 1.8 but some SV models wont accept this lens due to the mirror fouling the rear element. If my memory serves me correctly, the later SV's would take the 1.4, but I could be wrong here.
The SV, although having a somewhat dimmer viewfinder than later cameras is still a sweet classic and you will enjoy using it.

[lxdude]

I'd say a Takumar should do well for you. They're already smaller than many other makes' normal lenses (non M42, like Minolta, Nikon, Canon). And Takumars render beautifully, IMO.
A smallish normal in M42 that is excellent is the Fujinon 55/1.8, which came with the ST 701 and other stop-down metering Fujicas. It's not the EBC Fujinon, which is the same lens with multicoating, but the EBC lens has a lug on the back of the aperture ring for open aperture metering, which might interfere with the body flange. It interferes on some cameras and not on others. I think it's OK on the SV.

I don't think even the Fujinon is going to make a great difference on the SV. The camera will still be most of the bulk.
If you were to have a compact SLR like one of the Fujica ST series, then it could make a real difference. A Pentax MX with an M series K-mount lens would be substantially smaller, as would an Olympus OM-1 with 50mm Zuiko. With M42, I'd say probably the Fujinons are the smallest.

[Les Sarile]

I don't know which M42 lens you already have as a reference below is a lineup of my 50's in M42 mount and you can see the preset 55mm f2.2 that came with the original Asahi Pentax is significantly smaller.

[Les Sarile]

BTW, this copy I have (55mm f2.2) is a stellar performer when it comes to sharpness but does lack the SMC that Pentax introduced later. However, it does have 10 blades and has nice bokeh.

[bobwysiwyg]

Dosilver, sounds like you've not had chance to use it yet. Just a word of caution about lens mounting. Use some care in starting to thread the lens to the body. The threads are fairly fine. Definately not a mounting design for fast lens changes.