That's some field

Hope you like the new camera.... sure you will

All great stuff.... Never seen a Woodpecker at the side
of a road before.... usually Magpies

You can do it that way, but I prefer to set the lens on INF.
It's very difficult to accurately set 8M hyperfocal distance
on a wide angle lens.

You need to make sure that INF is correct, but it's rare for
a Pentax prime to be out.

The Sigma 70-300mm F4-5 won't have SR in Pentax fitting.
Unless they have recently added it. The Pentax 55-300mm
is much better.

There used to be someone in Italy who did one off
Gold Plating, Snakeskin etc. I wonder if he did
this? He did the Gold Rolleiflexes.

Edit: This is a Konica that he's supposed to have done

Ebay_Link

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: :

If you try stripping it down this (£4.89) screwdriver is an exact
fit for the M lenses rear mount link

If all else fails with M lenses the aperture lever can be cut
off leaving the lens as a pre-set. This has the advantage of
making Av usable at all apertures. With a 35mm you can leave
it set on f/8 and infinity focus plus Av and it will quickly capture
anything from about 3M to INF using it as a quick point and shoot.

All great.... pity the Goldcrest was disturbed

These are the best collection of butterfly shots I've ever seen
Keep at it!

It's a common, but not serious problem with that lens.
If you work the pin a few times it goes away, but it's
better to check it each time you use the lens.

Because all the 35mm f/2.8's seem the same I would still
sell it for about £40. It's an excellent performer and
very good wide open. I've still got one and rate it very
highly. Mine also has the sticky aperture.... no idea why
it effects just that one lens. I was going to strip mine
down, but the 5 screws on the baseplate seem glued. I
snapped the head off a £5 screwdriver trying to undo
them.