Don't pay the frankly daft sums some ebay sellers ask for them - mine were both around the £50 mark and the M is pretty much mint (K has paint scuffs but is otherwise fine).

From what I've heard Pentax picked the wrong lens as their consumer 28mm in the A series era - they should have adapted the f3.5 not the f2.8.

The K and M versions are usably sharp wide open, although I tend to shoot around f8 as that gives a sensible shutter speed outdoors and produces loads of depth of field. Took this with my M 28mm f3.5 by setting it to infinity at f8, metering with green button and shooting. Shot as JPG, then stitched with Hugin:

[IMG]http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x21/Kingofthemountains/Landscapes/IMGP2190-IMGP2195.jpg[/IMG]

and the same scene with the K 28mm f3.5 a few months later:

[IMG]http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x21/Kingofthemountains/Landscapes/IMGP3855-IMGP3860.jpg[/IMG]

I can't remember whether the difference in colour rendition was due to the lens or weather conditions, but suspect the latter as the first shot was on a spring day and the second in midsummer.

Yep, those imported ones were of course a case of the Zeiss name being slapped on generic lenses by the UK importers.

The designs were of course snapped up by the Soviets immediately post-WW2, leading to a lot of cloned lenses.

The K does come up occasionally for sane money, you just have to keep your eyes open. I have both the K and the M which I use alternately as I couldn't bring myself to sell either!

It'll be the Zeiss name, even though that seems to have gone through so many hands that I don't really see how it has much to do with the original Zeiss. It's a bit like BMW or Mercedes - the Japanese car manufacturers caught up with them years ago but people still buy a brand rather than the best product.

I know people who are desperately chasing new Zeiss-branded lenses for other DSLRs at thousands of pounds a go, when I seriously doubt they're any better than Pentax * or Ltd lenses.

That sounds rather like those "Lens in a cap" pinhole-type lenses which have been doing the rounds on ebay for a while. The diaphragm is a plastic disk with different sized holes which are placed in front of the lens as you turn the disk.

I somehow suspect that the Takumar fisheye for all its possible faults is light years ahead of these cheap plastic ones however!

I could do, but that seems like a lot of fiddling about. I've got plenty of older K mount lenses so haven't bothered making the effort with M42 glass.

I also fancied one of the Zenit "Olympic" special edition bodies for my collection, hence keeping eyes open for a lens and body.

A USB keyboard should work, the only thing is the age of the machine. Some laptops (usually older ones like the P3 Sony Vaio I use for digital mapping in the car) won't allow you to use one until it's fully booted and logged in.

Try it, if it doesn't work then you can buy an external enclosure to slot your hard disk into and recover the data that way (just need to know what size the drive is, and whether it's SATA or PATA). Alternatively have a look on ebay for similar models as spares or repair - you may be able to obtain a replacement original keyboard that way.

I would, but my K-m doesn't like M42 lenses at all. When you fit one to it (with genuine Pentax adapter) the results are always horribly underexposed,

I'm now using the Spotmatic and SV to play with weird and wonderful screw mount glass.

I am seriously considering a Zenit (to get hold of the Helios 58mm), at this rate I'll end up with a collection of Russian kit as well as my Pentax M42 gear!