Pentax SMC Pentax-FA 35mm f/2 AL (K)

Screw this onto an MZ-3 or a film LX and the body barely gains weight. Under 200 grams, a 49mm filter thread, a barrel short enough to disappear into a jacket pocket. The FA 35mm f/2 is what Pentax shooters reach for when they want one focal length for a day of walking a city, and it held that job for a long run. Pentax kept it in the catalog from 1999 to 2019.

On a 35mm body the 35mm view is the classic wide-normal: wide enough for a street, tight enough for a person across a table. Wide open at f/2 the center is already crisp. The AL in the name is an aspherical element doing real work, correcting the aberrations that smear point lights toward the corners. Stop to f/4 and the edges catch up. SMC coating holds contrast and keeps color clean, that slightly warm, saturated Pentax signature that sits well on Ektar and Portra alike.

Bokeh is where the budget shows. At f/2 and close focus the background goes soft enough, but high-contrast scenes throw some purple fringing on bright borders until you stop down. Aspherical elements like this one can also introduce a faint onion-ring texture in specular highlights, the usual cost of a molded asphere. This is not the creamy rendering of the FA 31mm f/1.8 Limited that sits above it in the line. It is also a fraction of the 31's price, and optically it gets close enough that plenty of shooters never feel the gap.

That price gap is why this lens still moves on the used market. The 31 Limited above it is the cult object, an aluminum-barreled prime that costs several times as much and is slow to find used. The DA 35mm f/2.4 below it is plastic and built for the APS-C circle. The FA 35 sits in between: full-frame coverage for film bodies and the K-1, a proper K bayonet, real sharpness, pocketable size. After it left the catalog in 2019 the used prices climbed and have not come back down.

One practical note. Autofocus is screw-driven off the body, so it whirs and rattles on an AF film body and never feels fast. On a manual-focus LX none of that matters. And because the front thread is a small, cheap 49mm, a screw-in ND or a graduated filter for bright landscape work costs almost nothing: meter the scene in Zone Light Meter, then pull your exposure back by the filter's rated density before you shoot.