Hi Matt,

I am afraid it very probably is a re-mortgage job. I buy & sell rare Pentax K (also Contax & Zeiss) and have only had two A* 85/1.4 in the last 24 months, both sold on evilbay for £600-£700. One went to the USA, as many scarce mf gear does, but a UK buyer paid £675 for one. He was a semi-pro using Pentax DSLR's in this 'Venture' portrait studio chain.

The vast majority of scarce manual focus gear now never reaches dealers and hardly ever appears at camera fairs, most just goes straight onto ebay and is usually sold worldwide, so you end up competing with usually, USA, Far East and Italian buyers, who seem to be the main bidders for this type of gear.

Good luck, but you can expect to pay at least £400 even for a scruffy one, but most fetch £500-700.

Cheers Steve.

Hi,

Just to say, my understanding is that spores from fungus need TWO conditions to thrive; moisture AND heat. In other words, they need humidity, so if you are 'heating' or keeping your lenses warm, do be careful you are not creating humid conditions....

Cheers Steve.

Hi,

Just to say, If you are after the best image quality then you should do as much as possible at the shooting stage. ANY post production work of any sort degrades the image file to some extent and the more you do, the worse it gets. So, the answer is, use the filters rather then poke about in photoshop.

Cheers Steve.

Hi,

Just to say, If you want arguably the 'best' filters, then stick to German made ones, either B&W or the much lesser known, but superb Heliopan ones. B&W use Schott glass by Schneider (as used by Zeiss) and much better brass mounts. I believe Heliopan use the same. The speedgraphic people are superb..great service, great products and good prices too.

You can pick up Heliopan at really low prices, as many people are unaware of the brand...I got a mint 67mm Heliopan polar (German made) from Ffordes recently for £7 !!!!!

Cheers Steve.

Hi Kim,

Thanks for that..I have the MH-RB and did find it is for the 85mm F/FA soft. I use it on other short tele lenses. I saw the MH-RA advertised and wondered what it was for..the advert said 52mm, but I wonder If they had the wrong thread size advertised.

Cheers.

Hi,

The above is a 52mm screw in hood for a short tele lens, I have tried the Bojidar site without sucess....can anyone advise?

Thanks Grumpy.

Hi,

Good optics cost money...cheap optics are to be avoided at all costs, there is always a quality trade off. If you like to look through the end of a milk bottle, buy a chinese optical device. It will certainly make your photography more interesting, but not any better!!

Cheers Steve.

Hi,

Just to say that FotoFrenzy recently still had an SMC-K 28mm f2 for £280....the last I saw on evilbay fetched £330.

Cheers Grumpy...

Hi,

If that £700 price tag is correct and I see no reason to think otherwise, then Pentax are taking the mickey it seems to me. The problem is that because the independants i.e effectively now only Tamron & Sigma, seem increasingly to think only Canon & Nikon exist by failing to release several of their lenses in either Pentax K (OR Minolta) mount, then Pentax are left to set their prices where they want to.

In the 70's & 80's, Minolta were having real trouble selling their MD lenses due to the rise in sales of independant lenses and had to redesign the whole MD lens range with corresponding lower prices...we now see the opposite happening.

This continual shift to just two main camera players in the market is not healthy for anyone. I am sorry to harp on, but the shift to digital and the shift of the camera market into the electronics industry is largely to blame for this. We already see Olympus in trouble and Pentax looks not so healthy. With Contax going, Leica in deep s***, Minolta and Pentax having to buddy up to what are minor or non existant players in the camera/ optics business the future looks bleak.

Of course the large useage of small aps sensors makes this problem worse for wide angle users...If I want wide angle I am sticking to film!!

Cheers Steve...still grumpy.

blimey!!! I did not realise Jessops was a camera shop, I thought it was a computer store.....