I like both of them... nice tonality and bokeh.
Sharpness isn't too important here.
What aperture have you used f/2.8??

Regards
Algi

Excellent lens especially if you can stop down to f/8 to f/11 which can be done in bright light. Stopping down also gives you more of the needed DOF. Works well with the Pentax 1.4X-S Converter. I've not really compared it on the 1.7x Adapter and 2X-S properly, but I have had acceptable results with them.

A much more useful lens than my 300mm A* because of the zoom.

With all of these long lenses support it is essential for sharp photos either chestpod, shoulderpod or monopod although I'm not a big fan of the latter, because it seems to make side to side movement worse.

Algi

My first SLR was a Sputmatic which was a Russian copy of the Spotmatic

Algi

It can be done, but probably not worth it. Some info on Pentax Forums USA and here

It might be better to post what lenses you have so we can tell you if they would be better sold.

I've still got two 50mm f/1.8's one with a sticky iris. Worth about £25 for the good one.

One 50mm f/1.4 worth about £75
Lens Hood metal maybe £30

135mm f/3.5 probably £30
28mm f/3.5 No idea maybe £40

Oly macros can be worth quite a bit.

Olympus actually made a camera and lenses that used the Pentax 42mm thread in 1971 the FTL one on ebay here with the 50mm f/1.4

Algi

Except for macro lenses the Pentax-A 50mm f/1.7 is the sharpest lens I've ever had (the M is also very close). I sold my 50mm FA f/1.4 just not in the same league. I've kept an A f/1.4 because it's almost as good as the f/1.7

I also sold a 24mm f2/8 A series it was identical in performance with the two Kit Lenses I compared it against Mk 1 and Mk 2, but I also had a poor Mk 1 as well.

The 28mm M and A f/2.8's get beaten by just about everything including some Vivitars and the M can have a bad purple cast at times. Probably built down to a cost in what used to be the most competitive focal length apart from 135mm.

The 40mm f/2.8 I've had good and bad, very sharp in the centre OK at the edge at f/8. I haven't got one at present, but looking at some old shots I'm sorry I didn't try out the bokeh at f/2.8 properly it looks like it could be a bit of a Bokeh King

The M 100mm f/2.8 can be very good, I've had a bad one and a good one, but the 100mm macro is better at f/5.6 and below.

The 135mm f/3.5 M is good but the Russian Jupiters 11A and 37A are a full class higher.

Algi

Edit: The 50mm f/1.7 F is also very good.

The colour balance is off on both. Too much red and green.

The shot on the left might be slightly OOF or it's a poor lens at f/16.

The lighting is slightly better on the shot on the right and being a good kit lens it's also sharp and would beat all the old prime lenses put together

Algi

The people who have produced these focus charts give you the impression that they have invented the wheel. Pentax Service Manuals have always contained a focus chart right back to the *istD

From the Service Manuals it would seem that the 50mm FA f/2.8 Macro lens is used for initial setup and it's not done as per most of the test chart sites state. The lens is rotated manually until the green light comes on from both directions and a tolerance is specified between the two.

The Service Manuals can be DL from link

The older model manuals have the best info. The best chart is the K10D. I can't see the K20D manual on the site.

Fleet Street pay a service company (Fixation)over £100 per NEW! camera to check them over and set the focus up to a higher tolerance than Nikon or Canon use in manufacture.

Algi

Found a kludge that works The Logitech SetPoint software lets you assign any keyboard keys to any button. So just a case of assigning PD and PU to buttons 3 and 4 I wish it had a 5th button that I could assign the ESC key to? Maybe press 2 buttons at once which gives scroll on XP?

Algi

Ha! Ha! Flossie, your supposed to read the previous post before replying. It's well documented on the NET that the equivalent feature to "disable taskbar always on top" available in all previous versions of Windows (since Win95)has been left out of Win 7 and the link provides a fix. It patches Explorer in memory and needs re-writing every time Explorer gets changed.

The author mentions:

As for support, I'll try to update it as time permits, if/when explorer is updated. Hopefully MS fixes this sooner rather than later, so this app won't be needed.

Algi

Just checked MS haven't fixed it so I downloaded the small EXE that you can either put on the Desktop and launch each time you want to use it or put it in your Startup Folder so it launches every time....... WOW! Now it seems like "Windows 8" The taskbar behaves exactly as it did in ALL! previous versions of Windows....... Now I expect a 100MB update to disable it because it lets Martians take control

Algi