It's rare and a collectors item, you can't buy them new. It's in great condition, comes with the box and to have the hood present is rare. It's widely regarded as one of the better if not best 85mm lenses.

And, as Stefan points out, it's in pentax mount - good luck mounting the Canon to your K10!

Also, I make it nearer £800.

Scribbler John, welcome to the forum. You've given us very little detail to go on - you haven't even told us what condition it's in! Also, to my knowledge, there was no M-series 85mm soft - is it this K series lens?

It would probably help you if you posted photos of the lens taking care to show the front and rear elements, a photo taken with the lens and gave some information about how you would like to be paid and shipping costs.

That's at least £200 cheaper than the first and £400 cheaper than the second? Yes!

I got the Pentax (well, Samsung, but it's identical) 360, and regret it - lack of swivel is a major shortcoming if you mount on the camera. However, it might be acceptable if using a bracket.

This seems excessive, particularly as the file number may be due to using an old SD card or the like. Nick has not yet told us what the actual number of actuations is.

Also, please note that the dust problem has occured since he bought the camera - it was not shipped with a dusty sensor!

The DFA feels relatively flimsy in the hand, but it does have quickshift which is very useful in macro.

Frankly, I was going to get the Tamron until the WR version of the DFA came out. It's expensive and has no aperture ring, but it looks fantastic, is compatible with the various lens correction features and is WR! Still saving up...

The Pentax-A 1.7/50 is a manual focus lens. Focus adjustment is for AF lenses. If your manual focus lenses are FF/BF, then you need to adjust your focussing screen with shims.

When you say "best value", do you mean cheap? If so, you might be best off with one of old the Sigma f/5.6 400mm's that crop up here and on ebay from time to time (the APO version is meant to be the best). Alternatively, you could go Manual Focus, but such older lenses tend to suffer in terms of CA and the like.

Another forum indicates that it is being discontinued in K-mount. It's reputation is great, so if you can get one now, it may well end up appreciating!

I had exactly the same problem with my first Manual Lens. The thing is, focussing at infinity or thereabouts is relatively easy as your DOF is relatively deep at such distances, so even if you are off then you are likely to have an acceptable image. Conversely, when focussing very close (less than a foot), your DOF is so narrow that subjects literally "pop" into focus when you get it right, and it is easy to tell if you have got it wrong.

In the intermediate case, not only is your DOF in the region of Inches, but it is very difficult to determine on the focussing screen which bit is in focus. Consequently, many of my portraits using my fast fifty are focussed between one and three feet in front of or behind my subject. This problem is due in part to the viewfinders used in modern AF cameras, which a) do not have a split prism or microprism to help focus; b) are small, dim and difficult to see; and c) make images appear sharper than they really are, meaning it is very difficult to achieve accurate focus.

In terms of a solution, there are a number of things you can do to improve the situation. As Glover suggests, I would recommend closing the lens down a little - I typically use f/2.4, which gives me a more forgiving DOF whilst still giving razor sharp images and acceptable bokeh.

You may also like to invest in a viewfinder magnifier to help you get the critical focus right. These come in two varieties - the ones that offer about 1.3 times magnification and let you see the whole screen, and the ones that offer 2 times magnification of the centre and flip out of the way to let you see the whole viewfinder. I have the latter and find it very helpful!

Of course, one option is to invest in a replacement viewfinder with focussing aids such as a Katzeye, which many people here recommend. However, replacing a focussing screen is fiddly, and the replacements are not cheap!

I would also recommend taking several images with slightly different focus points to ensure you get an acceptable image. You might do this by turning the focussing wheel whilst shooting in burst mode.

You can make it easier to check critical focus quickly in the following way. On my K200d, I can set the "starting zoom" so that when an image appears, turning the dial instantly zooms the centre of the image to high magnification so that I can check the focus. You might find this helpful when chimping your images!

It's also important to check that the dioptre of your viewfinder is set exactly right for your shooting eye, as having it mis-calibrated can make most of the above more difficult!