This is a film-era telephoto lens. I bought it for astrophotography and wildlife but found the minimum focus distance too long for the songbird photos I was interested in, and it is a large lens best suited to a tripod. The lack of autofocus support makes serious wildlife photography a challenge, but I did take many sharp moon photographs with it and some decent waterfowl photos in low light. Review:
https://www.pentaxforums.com/lensreviews/SMC-Pentax-K-500mm-F4.5-Lens.html
My copy is in excellent overall condition. It is exemplary of the excellent build quality older Pentax lenses are known for yet is relatively lightweight. The built-in lens hood works smoothly and is sufficiently deep and the lens features a handy swivel functionality which is unique in that the camera side of the barrel turns rather than the whole lens turning around the tripod mount. This is a nice usability feature as you are likely going to be using the lens on a tripod.
If you are looking for a first lens to get into "serious" telephoto photography this may well fit your needs. The manual focusing ring is beautifully dampened and on modern Pentax bodies it meters nicely as the camera doesn't have a mechanical linkage to the lens aperture so it just meters according to the lens aperture.
Comes with the original metal front cap and a plastic rear cap. Can be used on most modern camera bodies with an inexpensive adapter.
Thanks for looking!
