Well done Gareth, great shot!

The bus stop is over 100m away. The DA 55-300 shot is sharp enough for me to leave the Tair in retirement, I think.

Over a year on, I happened to be pointing my Pentax DA 55-300mm over the fence after setting the micro focus adjustment. The is a 100% crop using standard phase detect focussing at 300mm, f/11.




Yes, they have changed the bus stop. It's interesting to compare the result with that for the Tair lens above. Not much in it, is there?

Andrew

I can feel another ebook coming ..............

I think you might have meant this page: http://www.ricoh-imaging.co.uk/en/viewfinder-focusing-screen.html

Although those are all replacement focussing screens, none of them look like split image screens to me.

Katzeye optics ( http://www.katzeyeoptics.com/cat--Pentax-DSLRs--cat_pentax.html ) and focussingscreen.com ( http://www.focusingscreen.com/index.php?cPath=25_149 ) have them if you do want a split image or microprism screen.

Best of luck with this
Andrew

I wasn't aware that Pentax made a split image replacement screen. Can you provide a link to that?

The "third party" screens from focussingscreen.com and the like are cut down Nikon or Canon originals - so I do not think there is a quality issue.

Andrew

I had a split image focussing screen from focusingscreen.com (similar to the Katzeye screens but a bit cheaper) fitted to my Pentax K200D. It was not more accurate than focussing by eye and using using focus confirmation, just a bit quicker. A big downside is that it totally screws up in camera spot metering - often a couple of stops out, so totally unusable. Centre weighted and matrix metering seemed to work OK. If I had kept the K200D, I would have removed the split image screen and replaced the original.

I now use a Pentax K30 and tend to use spot metering very frequently. I also find that live view with focus peaking (or even without it) works very well. For both of those reasons, I would NOT consider replacing the focussing screen in the K30.

Andrew

I only ever use NDs, ND grads and polarizers.

This lens looks very similar to the Tair 3-A that I have. Mine had very stiff focussing and I had to strip it down and then clean & regrease the focussing helicoid.

It was whilst I was stripping the lens that I discovered that it is NOT a native M42 lens. If it is the same as mine, unscrewing the grub screws holding the M42 mount allows it to be removed. Underneath is a Russian "A mount", which is the lens's native mount. The "A mount" appears to be identical to the lens part of a T-mount adapter.

The point of this note is that the M42 adapter can be removed and replaced with (the camera end half of) a T-mount to Pentax K adapter, thus converting the lens itself to a Pentax K mount. It's a whole heap easier to use on a Pentax DSLR like that.

From the photos, your lens looks to be in extremely good nick and the price is very good. If I didn't already have one, I'd buy it from you in a heartbeat.

All the best
Andrew

I think you might have overlooked "or equivalent". Shooting at f/8 1/500sec ISO100 is equivalent. Personally, I find shooting manual is way less faffing about - you do not have to reshoot when the automatics get it wrong, which in my experience is most of the time.

Andrew