I like the 3rd and 4th hard to chose between them. The Opera House
is well known the 4th could be anywhere, but it is an excellent shot.

For digital use the Pentax Rear Converter-A 1.4X - S is very similar
to the 1.7x. Works well with the 55-300mm MF only. Loses slightly
less light than the 1.7x

Apologies also to Don

Sorry about that John. It was listed like a Classified so
I assumed it was. Perhaps Carol can find someone with a
Pentax body and just make sure the aperture shows up on the
camera display or lists it in the Classifieds and offers a
full refund if it doesn't work on the buyers camera. If it's
the silver version there should be a strong chance that it's
OK.

The seller and any potential buyer should be able to ascertain
if the lens works or not. At least Don has flagged it up for them.
It sounds like it's just a loose contact inside that has been there since manufacture.It is fixable, but that would cost extra. At least if it works now it's a fault that shouldn't emerge in the future. Pentax
should really repair it free if it's a manufacturing defect, although
they would probably say it wasn't designed for digital.

I always regretted not buying one of these from new. I did borrow one
once and was impressed particularly with the manual focussing. I'd be
interested in this one except that I've just bought ReubenO's Pentax DA* 300/4 and already have the FA* and A* versions plus 4 zooms that
cover 300mm

Try it on Energizer Lithium's first. Eneloop's aren't very high capacity.
Search Ricehigh's Blog he's done some testing on batteries and chargers.
The problem could be your charger.

Never heard of that one Don, although I think there was something one here a few weeks back, but that could have been a one off. This is the famous "Bejersey" zoom search "Bejersey 80-320mm" on DPReview for examples of what it's capable of.

Some examples do suffer from wobbly barrels, but I wouldn't expect that from one that's like new. They still work with a wobbly barrel. All AF lenses have to be fairly loose for the AF to work.

When AP tested this lens the low light performance was so good that they thought they must have made a mistake.... so they scrapped the test and did it again and got the same excellent results.

The reviews on the other forum are at link

I don't think John likes comments in the classified section.

At less than 1m which this is the DOF to the back and front
is identical.

Nice one Bob.... now buy her a K-5

Hi, and welcome to the forum. Excellent lens and I'm sure that because it's hardly been used someone will be very interested in it. It might help if you could fill in your approx. location? County would do if your in the UK. It helps to know if any import duties are applicable.