Are these really that expensive!

http://www.srsmicrosystems.co.uk/156/Pentax-Mount-Adapter-K.html

I see that there is an adaptor here on the site for sale at around the £50 and another at around £45. The one on the srs site is in the £60 bracket.

The genuine Pentax ones seem to be very expensive for what they are.

Third party versions of the adaptor are far less expensive, though I don't know if they're significantly worse as a result.

Just that I have 2 or 3 of the "Original" type kicking around

If you ever want to get rid of one, I'd be interested.

They regularly turn up on Ebay for £20/30.

The genuine ones seem to have gone a bit silly. I have one (but I'm hanging onto it for now) and I also have a copy which works, but not quite as easily as the genuine one.

It seems as though the copy doesn't have quite the right thicknesses around the mounting flanges, although it allows infinity focus it doesn't clip in as easily as the genuine one and it needs a special tool (included) to remove it.

Blimey - I didn`t think they had gone that expensive - I can`t remember what I paid for mine - certainly under £20 - now firmly esconced on the *istD for a dedicated M42 Digital camera.

Tony

I paid £12.95 in the early 1980s.

Mine came from ebay last year for less than £5 delivered!

I just thought it was a cheap copy until it arrived...

I have a number of these adapters three are genuine I believe and 2 are non genuine, the genuine ones work well and the non genuine ones are rubbish

I didn't pay anywhere 60quid for mine thats a ridiculous price.

Here are some pics of adapters I have

Genuine and works very well
[IMG]http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x261/ClarkyinAus/IMGP9370.jpg[/IMG]

Genuine I believe and works equally as well
[IMG]http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x261/ClarkyinAus/IMGP9374.jpg[/IMG]

Chinese fake avoid this one, very difficult too remove
[IMG]http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x261/ClarkyinAus/M42chinese.jpg[/IMG]

obvious fake, very tight fit and the chrome flakes off into your camera.
[IMG]http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x261/ClarkyinAus/M42chinese2.jpg[/IMG]

There are probably dozens more in the market, some good, most not so good.

We should start a database and post pics of the good ones and the ones to avoid.

Well I suppose Pentax had to come up with something MORE ridiculous than £439.99 for the FA 50 1.4

Compared to the Olympus 35mm-4/3 adaptor the Pentax one is incredibly cheap!
I paid £13 for my Pentax 42-bayonet adaptors back in the mid 1970`s,At the time i bought a KM body for around £95, a Mars bar was 2 1/2p, Flying lessons cost £11.50-£12.50 per hour! So i don`t think that allowing you to fit old lenses to a Digital Camera is such bad value.Don`t forget that Pehtax are under no obligation to produce the adaptor at all! If you had a Canon you would have to buy a new lens!
Regards - Pete

Slight error in the above post- Mars bars went from 3 1/2p to 4p in March 1974! I remember because i found a place selling them at the old price and bought 26 of them thinking that they would last months, In fact i ate the lot in one week-end and never touched another for many years afterwards!!!
Shortly after my last post i decided to order another Pentax Sensor Cleaning Kit as my original one is getting low on sticky paper after 3 years of heavy use and was horrified at the cost of something that was probably less than 5p to manufacture costing nearly £60!!! I found one on E-Bay for £25 plus postage from Malaysia.

Regards - Pete

You are exaggerating of course, but most of the costs are in setting up a manufacturing process and in distribution and advertising. It would be interesting to see how close you are....

Hi John, I don`t think 5p is far off the mark, You would be surprised at how very little things cost to manufacture, As you say, Most of the price we pay is down to set up costs and distribution, Plus of course everyone down the line must take a cut of the profit along with Taxes and import duty. Naturally these things will never sell in bulk so that is another reason for costs being so high. I did try to find the identical Nikon Sensor Cleaning Kit to compare prices but could not see anything online so i will have to dig deeper.
I have to say the kit is the best Sensor cleaner that i have ever used but for a tiny plastic lollipop and around 30 sheets of 2 inch square plastic pages £60 is hard to swallow! I paid £36 for my last one from SRS about 3 years ago and still have around 4 sheets of the plastic left, But i did not want to wait until i ran out completely before buying another kit. Luckily i found several sellers on E-Bay, (I just hope i don`t get stung for Tax when it arrives!) I will just have to start charging my friends if they need a Sensor clean in future!

Regards - Pete