new to forum

Hi, I recently discovered your site and found your forum interesting reading, I've been a Pentax user since my teens and find they make a great product, both lens and camera.

I had a look at the *ist the other day, and liked what I saw until I read in the brochure and on the net that the camera needed to custom fuction 17 to use K and M series lenses I gather that this is so all apertures can be used but can anyone tell me exactly how this is acoplished because I have many K and Ms that I love to use on my mz5 as well as the manual focus cameras they were made for.

thanks for any help you can give.

Hi Mark and welcome to the forum.

The *ist custom function enables the use of lenses with an aperture ring, as opposed to the new J lenses which have no such ring but control the aperture with camera controls instead.

I think that if you used a lens with aperture ring with the *ist and kept that lens on "A" then the camera would control the aperture just as if a J lens were fitted. The custom function merely enables you to take the lens off "A" or to use M series or earlier lenses with no A setting. I am open to correction on this because we have not yet fully evaluated our new *ist, but that is what I read the situation as so far.

Sue likes her new *ist which shares much of the operational style of her digital camera. For myself, I think I prefer the MZ5 and MZ3 designs.

Thanks John, I'm with you my MZ-5 is a great little camera I like that its vitually the same to use as my K2 and LX I wish I'd waited for an MZ3 or even an MZ-5n but what can I say when I saw it I fell in love and pre-ordered, the reason for my question was more to do with the anticipated release of the *ist D, I'd love to go digital but I love my M series lenses more, please post any interesting findings you have with the *ist since I'm sure the D will be similar.
thanks again Mark

I bought a *ist today. It came with the kit standard FAJ 28-80 but also purchased a standard FA 80-320. The latter has a apeture ring which should be used in the A position with the *ist. Older lenses that do not have a A are compromised.

See http://kmp.bdimitrov.de/technology/K-mount/crippled.html
and http://digilander.libero.it/aohc/selart18e.htm

for information about the new "crippled" approach.

That aside, I really like the camera and look forward to seeing the results.

Stuart

thanks for the info stuart, I guess I'm not too disappointed I tend not to use my m/f lenses [mostly K and M series] on my a/f bodies and vice versa it's just nice to know I can, I've handled the *ist and I like the way it feels and handles, without test driving it, I think you've made a good choice. I'm happy with my present line up of film cameras so its the D*ist that really interests me, at least if I stick to lenses with an aperture ring I'll have backwards compatability, thanks again keep us updated on the *ist' performance.

Mark

thanks for the info stuart, I guess I'm not too disappointed I tend not to use my m/f lenses [mostly K and M series] on my a/f bodies and vice versa it's just nice to know I can, I've handled the *ist and I like the way it feels and handles, without test driving it, I think you've made a good choice. I'm happy with my present line up of film cameras so its the D*ist that really interests me, at least if I stick to lenses with an aperture ring I'll have backwards compatability, thanks again keep us updated on the *ist' performance.

Mark