Locking the shutter open, how?

Have a look at page 81 item 12 of your distructions. This may help.

Yes you do, otherwise the camera doesn't know you're still holding the button down.

Obvioulsy not the best solution, but workable.

My old Chinon CP-7m 35mm SLR had a built in timer - you could set any length of exposure up to 90 minutes, press the shutter and leave it to it. Seems like a fairly easy bit of firmware to write to me...

Dan

Your fingers are obviously fitter than mine Daniel. I get cramp in my fingers after a couple of minutes holding that button down, and it plays hell with the arthritis .

Aah that sucks. You could always try using one of those clamps for DIY from the pound shop.

Thanks Guys
Yes there is a Bulb setting in Manual only. A small silly mistake on Pentax for not having a means of locking the shutter open with a first press and a second press of the shutter utton to close the shutter. It looks like the remote is the way to go with a cloths peg or something to keep the butten depressed.

Hugs

I believe no camera does it that way so you can't blame Pentax not for having that.
It's a great miss it doesn't have a socket for a wired remote, there are digital remote's that you can program fully (number of shots, shutterspeed, interval, etc.).

Apparently the K-x and K-7 do have this feature Stefan - another example of Pentax introducing little features which show they really do think about things from the photographers perspective.

Yeah indeed interesting, still would love a timer for it though.

Sorry Elva - for some reason I thought you had the Kx when I replied. What I found on the Kx confirms what Pentaxophile says.

The press-to-open and press-to-shut functionality is, I believe, the T mode found in older cameras (T as opposed to B).

I was just thinking the same thing Terry, although on the early Pentaxes "T" meant when you pressed the button it opened the shutter but then you had to turn the shutter speed dial to another speed to close it again.

K.