*ist DS "camera customisation" to use K-lens.

I think I'm going to go and lie down in a darkened room and think about this! Just when we thought we were sorted out.....

I can say that a SMC Pentax-M 50mm f1.7 that I tried was fine.

Did you set the "Using aperture ring" in the Custom Menu to "Permitted"?

Yes I set that and the other one :- 'Fl with S Lens used' set to :- '2 Available'. Sorry I forgot to include thes two which where mentioned in the explanation that I found in the post to the Yahoo Forum - pentax_istDS.

Has anyone else noticed this. I'm a relative newcomer to digital and this site so this may have been covered elsewhere, but:

I have just been having a little play about with my DS with a 75-150 M. I must confess that I haven't read the manual yet, but I was very surprised to notice the following:

With custom setting set to allow the use of aperture settings rather than A and the exposure mode set to M on the dial, if you activate the DOF preview, whilst looking through the viewfinder, the remaining frame counter in the viewfinder turns into a meter, giving recommendations fron -3 to +3 stops. So if you have a shutter speed selected, simply turn on DOF preview, and adjust aperture ring until you get a meter reading of "0". I have had a quick unscientific check on this and exposure seems to be fine. Just like a good old fashioned meter would have done on a camera of the vintage of the lens in question. This is excellent news.

I'm away to get my Lunasix F to check for the meter's accuracy.

Nimdur

This works on the *ist D too. A nice feature.


Owdsnapper

Did you manage to get your non-A lenses to work? I can't offer any suggestions as to what you are doing wrong, as I have a D, not a DS, but it does work, so persevere.

George

Initially, my *istD did not work according to the manual with 'M' series lenses. After some considerable research, the problem was solved by updating the original firmware from v1.0.0 to 1.1.1 (and since then up to 1.1.2)

I think you do need to keep yourself informed in these days of firmware upgrades. This particular upgrade was the talk of Pentax message boards for months.

George

The settings were as follows :-
Focus mode lever = MF
Mode Dial = M
I set stops with the aperture ring f5.6, f8,f11,f16,f22 and using the method I have seen described in another Pentax forum as follows :-
1) Half press the shutter release and hold
2) Whilst holding, press the AE-L button ( eyepiece will darken momentarily whilst an exposure reading is taken.)
3) Press shutter release fully to expose image.


This "workflow" really works. It is not necessary to hold the shutter release button halfway down, it is sufficient to have the metering switched on and then press the AE-Lock. This steps down the aperture and adjusts the matching exposure time. I had one lens, where it did not work, a SMC-M 2.0/35 mm and I found out, that as usual with these old lenses, the grease in the iris mechanism became sticky a bit over the years and thus the iris blades close in slow motion. All the other K/M lenses work without flaw in this M mode. Next step is to clean up the aperture mechanism in my venerable lens... (every 8-10 years, I guess)

Ron