Does anyone have any opinions on how the 18mm f11 fish-eye Takumar might behave on a dslr (with M42 adaptor of course). It is my belief that it gives a 360 degree image on a 35mm frame so... how might that look on an APS-C sized frame?

Ken

I guess all of us who signed have now had the email from 10 Downing St. Amazing thing the internet really - 60,000 people led up the garden path by one twit! BTW there was a piece in AP last week about it.

Thanks, Mannesty, those really made me laugh - perhaps we should start a 'true confessions' section on this forum.

Matt, thanks to you too, excellent information.

Ken

OK so maybe this was, in retrospect, a dumb thing to do but it has given my chums endless amusement...

Every couple of years or so my daughter's school has a photo taken of the entire school which is quite an impressive undertaking with a sort of grandstand for 600 people and shot on 10x8, it takes place in a public park. I was walking along the equally public adjacent road and took a pic of the scene with man with a real full-frame camera and his head under a dark cloth in foreground entire school in background. Now, unbeknown to me at the time, the police were called because 'a man with a camera was lurking in the bushes'. When my 11 year old daughter says who the man is she was asked what sort of camera her dad used. What can this possibly mean? Does a Pentax 645 make you more or less of a danger to society than someone with a Nokia phone?

The deputy head phoned me to complain, claiming I had committed a crime and a further offence under the data protection act, I kid you not.
I pointed out that no crime had taken place and that anyone wanting pictures of girls in running shorts etc could obtain them freely from the school's own web site.

The whole world has gone bloody mad and I've signed the petition too.

Ken

Don,

You are right but sometimes on these pages people post or link to pics that are so small that any discussion about their resolution etc. is rendered pointless, sometimes, 'more is more'!

I wil post a link to some of my Canadian (small) pictures later this week, I'll be very interested in comments from you natives.

Ken

For what its worth here's a hurriedly grabbed snap of my neighbour's cat

taken with the 18-55 and the crop is about 30% of the frame, his owners are delighted and now have one of those boxy canvas prints on their living room wall. My point here is less about pets and more about the quality of the lens so here is another one, shot RAW and other than converting to mono has had absolutely no work done to it in PS other than the default settings in PS elements RAW converter - stop knocking the kit lens!!!

Do you really mean the motor drive or the much more common auto winder? I used the latter a lot for many years until the MX died. The only problem is that the battery covers are very easily damaged.

look out for a Pentax-F 50mm 1.7, works perfectly and auto focus too. This is a cracking 'portrait' lens on a dslr and has beautiful bokeh too

The 70-210 performs very well but as mentioned above it is slow and heavy - sharp though

I have both the Pentax F 70-210, which has autofocus, and the 50-200. I think the weight of the former is too much for the digital bodies. It really is a good lens but on digi the 50-200 beats it hands down in terms of balance and performance, however, the 50 - 200 wont work on a film body and the M series lenses lack function on the digital bodies, M42 screw threads are actually better! I might be tempted to sell the F 70-210. PM me if you are interested.

Ken