DA 35mm f2.4? Weighs next to nothing, very sharp, cheap too by Pentax standards.

I'll give them £50 for it?

I think the K series prices are due to collectors rather than people who actually want to use them. Anything rare and old will eventually gain a following of that nature - look at the people paying £500 for Wrenn model trains when you can buy a modern model which is more accurate and a better runner for around a fifth of that.

I like K series lenses for their build quality and the fact that they can still produce top-quality images for comparatively little money, but I draw the line at paying the prices now demanded for some!

Tatra had a proud history. They made the 603 with a rear-mounted air cooled V8 (popular with communist officials, needless to say the workers couldn't get near one!) and of course the famous 6x6 and 8x8 trucks.

I recall reading that they were considered a part of the Czech resistance during WW2. Mostly because their cars were surprisingly fast and rear engined with tricky handling. A combination which did much to reduce the numbers of German officers who had commandeered them...

I might try that if I can get hold of some, I also need to lacquer the parts before refitting this time. The problem with the ME Super is that the top plate is plastic, so etch primer might trash it?

I suspect it would have been ok had I rubbed all the chrome plating off and then used plain Halfords white or grey primer to get a good key on the plastic. The winder top cover is fine, that got a good rubbing down as it was a bit scuffed after removal (ended up using mole grips to get it to turn, everything else failed!)

I don't think we've bought anything on the ferry since it ceased to be duty free (when the EU trading agreements changed to allow you to bring in anything you like for personal use). The usual approach changed to a last-day trip around the hypermarket before heading for the port.

I do have an orange one that I made a while ago, unfortunately it proved unreliable and I also need to rub it down and repaint it properly as the paint is flaking off in places. It's next on the list after this black one proves itself to work properly.

Planning to leave it for a week or two, then try winding on and firing the shutter a few times. I have noticed that the non-cocking shutter fault seems to happen when M series bodies are left unused for a while.

Thanks - bookmarked! I'll have a play sometime when the weather is a bit less rubbish.

A very quick shot:

[IMG]http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x21/Kingofthemountains/IMGP4783.jpg[/IMG]

I'm still not entirely sure about the colour, but I can easily get hold of some fine-grained wood effect covering if I get bored with this. I nearly went for a reddish-brown wood effect but decided against it.

I've now created the marble-finish ME Super...

After much prodding around one of my three previously dead ones appears to work, so I bought some green marble-effect fablon to replace the peeling original material. Not entirely convinced about the result but I can always put another layer of something more conventional (like the mahogany-effect stuff they also had) over the top if I don't warm to it.

I would have liked a wider angle than the 35mm, but the lens is superb and the only reasonably affordable AF prime.

IMO the perfect prime for a cropped sensor would be a 28mm. That gives you something close in field of view to that of the 43mm Ltd on film, a length Pentax picked because they felt it was a better standard lens than a 50mm.