Ever since I heard about the crazy small Pentax Auto 110 system I have wanted to pick up some lenses and adapt them. They are relatively cheap and promised at the very least to be good fun. The right lot popped up at the right price recently, and I snagged a good kit of many of the lenses. (Though not all. If you see a cheap 70mm 2.8 up for sale, let me know.)
The camera I decided to try the lenses out on first was my Olympus EP2, an inexpensive m4/3 camera from a few years ago. It has all the basics you need in a good camera. Manual control, good controls, and even some old generation stabilization. The Pentax 110 lenses cover the whole m43 sensor and give the same 2x crop factor as the Pentax Auto 110 did. Meaning the 18mm is a 36mm equivalent, 24mm is 48, etc.
To attach the lenses to the camera I bought a Fotasy Pentax Auto 110 to M4/3 adapter. It was the cheapest adapter I could find, and that was my qualification. These are manual lenses that you can’t control the aperture on so there was no need for any fancy bits in the adapter.
The lenses that came in my lot are the 18mm f2.8, 24mm f2.8, 50mm f2.8 and finally the 20-40mm f2.8, the only zoom lens ever made for the system. The only two I am missing from the full collection are a fixed focus version of the 18mm in a more compact size, and the 70mm f2.8 lens. I think I’ll skip the 18mm fixed focus one for now, but I am interested in the 70mm. In addition to the lenses I have the only Teleconverter made for the system, the Soligor 1.7x. It’s tiny.
The lenses range from hilariously small (enough to make me worry about my baby consuming it) to actually fairly normal size, in the case of the 20-40, which looks like a m4/3 lens except for the tiny mount. They are light, compact, kinda plastically, but cute.
I will say my expectations for image quality were not high. As I mentioned, the aperture cannot be changed as the Auto 110 camera had a special way to control aperture. Some people have found some interesting ways around this, but for now this means I am shooting wide open all the time.
Going in with those low expectations I was pleasantly surprised by the results. The lenses are reasonably sharp, bokeh is interesting, and the two wide lenses focus rather closely. It’s too early to say much more about the lenses so stay tuned for a more in-depth analysis after using them more. I can already they fulfil the fun factor I was hoping for. Enjoy the sample pics below and feel free to ask me any questions!
Happy snappin’ out there!
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Olympus EP2 and Pentax 110 18mm f2.8 
Olympus EP2 and Pentax 110 18mm f2.8 
Olympus EP2 and Pentax 110 50mm f2.8 
Olympus EP2 and Pentax 110 24mm f2.8 
Olympus EP2 and Pentax 110 20-40mm f2.8
Hello. I truly enjoy your videos. And was waiting for you to discover the magical 110 lens lineup.
I used mine on a Panasonic G2. But, I believe they look and feel at home on a Pentax Q series camera.
Also, if you look closely a the adapter, you might see some light leaks which would degrade end results; I have the same adapter for M/43 but the one for my Q10 is just better.
By the way, if interested, I could lend you my copy of the 70mm lens. once you hand hold it, and see what that little beast can do; you will be amazed.