In that case I'd recommend SRS for their excellent customer service and the fact that they're a specialist rather than 'Amazon'

SRS have them at £24.99 and you'll get free postage if you give them your username from the forum

https://www.srsmicrosystems.co.uk/pentax-o-me53-magnifying-eyecup.html

Thank you!

Thank you!

Thank you - I was in 2 minds as to whether to send it back or not, but while clearly the optics are fine, I was concerned that they might be affected in the future. Really missing it though as there are more beautiful butterflies fluttering around!

Having read about the once in a decade population bloom of painted ladies I had awaited their arrival locally with some anticipation. This was my DA*300's last outing before being boxed up and sent back to SRS for the lens wobble to hopefully be cured. I think these show that from an optical point of view the lens is still superb.

All from my garden where I've really tried to encourage wildlife more than ever this summer and the butterflies have not disappointed me!



















There are a few more on my flickr account here

Thank you for looking.

Thank you, Roger. I'll try and video it on a tripod and will send the clip to SRS.

Andrew

Hello,

I recently noticed that my DA*300 has a small amount of movement that I hadn't seen before. When mounted to a camera the lens mount is secure and the main body of the lens closest to the camera is too. However I can best describe the 'loose' part as the front part of the lens, beyond the focus ring. The movement is slight (1-2mm perhaps), but can also be seen in the focus scale window, where the scale moves along with the front part of the lens.

Optically it is still superb, but the movement can be disconcerting - I'm not sure of it needs fixing or is part of the design of the lens. Can any fellow owners advise on whether their lens has this characteristic, please?

Thanks!

Lovely colours and sharp images - especially like #1 with the damselfly just adding to the scene!

Thank you - these are all shot in the East Midlands. We seem to have lots of butterflies about this year. I had 8 species in my garden for the Big Butterfly Count last weekend

Thank you, David. I have to admit that I have no regrets about getting the DA*300, even though I had to sell 4 other lenses that were used far too little to justify keeping. The HD 1.4TC just gives that extra range, with no discernible degradation of image quality. Together with both the K5iiS and lately the K3 it's a great combination.

Thank you for your kind and flattering comments - I've worked hard on developing stealthy stalking techniques, learning how to use the lens effectively (many of my butterfly shots are manually focussed), and then this summer I have started shooting in RAW. First outing was RAW+ 'just in case'. Ever since I've abandoned the in camera JPEGs & shoot purely in RAW - that makes a huge difference and allows recovery of some shots that would previously have not made the cut!

Andrew