Yep, but to the best of my knowledge they didn't offer a 50mm in that range?

The bayonet Takumars are best avoided by most accounts, apart from the 28mm f2.8 which is pretty much identical to the Pentax-M version but with different coatings.

Also worth bearing in mind that the Takumar will be an M42 fitting, so you'll need a genuine adapter to fit it to a K mount and the camera won't be able to hold the aperture open while you're focussing as it does normally.

You won't go wrong with buying a genuine Pentax 50mm f1.7 of any sort.

Keep it up. The more people are aware of their rights then the more noise they'll make when those rights are extinguished.

They also used it for a 28mm f2.8 which is identical to the later version of the Pentax-M 28mm f2.8 apart from the coatings and lettering. That one isn't a bad lens, if you can find it cheaply in good condition then it's worth a look.

Nobody seems to have a good word to say for the rest of the Takumar Bayonets though!

I used to work in a secondary school repairing PCs, if asked to fix a "slow" one I'd generally check the following:

RAM (we had 1GB as a benchmark for XP SP3, but generally the users weren't running photo manipulation software so you might want more)

Hard disk fragmentation - if your hard disk seems to be churning away a lot while loading programs, check this. Just right click on "My Computer", select Manage my computer from the menu, and then find disk defragmenter in the box that appears. You may find that you need to move some files in order to allow this to run properly as it requires a certain quantity of free space (15% from memory?) but it should help matters.

Check for spyware too - there are free programs such as Spybot Search and Destroy or Adaware that will remove most forms.

Do not, whatever you do, install anything promising to "optimise your PC". Most of these programs are spyware or nagware that will make the problem worse, the same goes for web popups shouting at you about a virus. What you install is in fact a virus which manifests itself by constantly trying to scare you into paying money. Avast! antivirus is genuinely free for home users and does a great job.

We had one case of a teacher managing to install one of the fake antivirus programs. It was quicker to wipe the hard disk and reinstall a clean image from the server than it would have been to try to clean it out manually!

A friend of mine used to be a PCSO (until the contract ran out, and there was no money to renew it). It's a really rotten job. The public expect you to do wonders for local problems but you lack the powers to do anything apart from patrol and provide a visual deterrent.

You get all the legal hypochondriacs (for want of a better term) too. Example, she and her colleague were once stopped by an elderly lady who wanted to know what they were doing about the stabbing that happened yesterday. Their response was "We've not had a report of one?". It transpired that the confused old biddy had heard of a stabbing in London on the news and assumed that it was in a local park here...

Authority figures would do well to remember this basic fact:

If your opening line to a stranger is aggressive, obnoxious, or patronising then you're not likely to get anything but the same in return. You'll get far more information from someone by being pleasant than you ever will by demanding it.

I'd rather live in a civilised country where the Police don't immediately use legal powers to gain information that would most likely be given to them freely if they asked politely.

I already have one, so I'd definitely recommend it. A very under-rated body that will work with all K mount lenses (even the later FAs without an aperture ring, although it'll be in shutter-priority mode).

The opinions I've read of the original AF lens seemed to suggest that it wasn't a bad performer. It's certainly fast for a zoom - f2.8 is prime territory.

Interestingly I did see a very early AF lens which had all of the hardware built in, so it would work with any K mount body. It was a 50mm but I can't remember the brand name - it may have been Sears. I doubt performance was stellar, but I wouldn't mind one as an interesting oddity.

Edit, I have found that Chinon offered a K mount 50mm f1.7 with infra-red AF built in. It isn't the same as the first one I saw but the idea is similar.

Ah, but free stuff is good for fiddling about and doing mad things with. Like the person I saw on another forum who made a lens with a spare mount, element, and a couple of cardboard tubes.

It actually functioned surprisingly well!