Is it this camera?

http://www.aohc.it/cameras/S.jpg

There are some old ads for manuals here:

http://www.aohc.it/classife.htm

Frankly, with these old cameras a manual should be pretty unnecessary. If anything isn't clear, why not post a question here?

The lens, incidentally, is much newer than the camera.

G

As far as I am aware (but I could be wrong) the shutter WILL fire on a pre-A lens, but the aperture will be wide-open (irrespective of the aperture set on the lens).

In any mode other than manual and Tv, the camera will attempt to expose correctly by adjusting the shutter speed.

G

Lest there be any doubt, I wasn't including John Riley in my diatribe against "diehard photographers"!

It is obvious that people who have older (K and M) lenses should avoid "crippled" film cameras.

G

Modern SLR cameras and lenses of all makes are designed so that the lens aperture can be set on (and often by) the camera. This means that it is not necessary to have an aperture ring on the lens.

Instead of a mechanical linkage between body and lens, all that is necessary is some electrical contacts so that the camera can tell the lens what aperture to use.

The best cameras and lenses are equipped with both electrical and mechanical equipment so that they can be used either way. This allows the use of an old lens on a new camera, and vice-versa. However, this is obviously more expensive than just having electrical contacts.

Pentax has made four film cameras that only have electrical contacts, and therefore can't use the old K and M lenses which are purely mechanical. (The term K lens refers to the original bayonet lenses which were made for K series cameras. The lenses are, however, called SMC Pentax, not SMC Pentax-K as you might expect.)

These "crippled" cameras are MZ-30, MZ-50, MZ-60 and *ist (film). They are perfectly good cameras in other respects.

Pentax has also made a number of "crippled" lenses designated SMC Pentax-FAJ which lack aperture rings. They can't be used on K and M cameras.

The Pentax digital SLRs are a hybrid. Although they are technically "crippled", Pentax has provided a work-around which enables them to use K and M lenses in manual mode. This actually works very well, though obviously not as well as it would if the cameras had the mechanical linkage.

Die-hard photographers whinge like mad about this, but it's not nearly as big a problem as they make out. They're just too idle and set in their ways to learn how to set the aperture on the camera instead of on the lens.

What is particularly stupid about their attitude is that they tend to be people who like to do things manually, so the fact that the K and M lenses only work in manual mode on the DSLRs is not really a problem at all.

G

Have a look here:

http://www.pentax.co.uk/photographic/repairs.html

If I were you I'd phone first.

G

If you email Pentax, and say you are looking for some spare parts, they will email back a parts diagram (provided this is a relatively recent model which they still support).
G

If you mean slide or transparency film, then of course it does.

G

It's not clear whether the original poster was alluding to bayonet lenses (K or M) or screw-mount.

With any lens that does not have an "A" setting on the aperture ring (ie: all SMC-Pentax and SMC Pentax-M lenses, plus all screw lenses), the camera must be set to Manual, and the use of apertures other than A must have been turned on in the settings menu.

To meter, press the appropriate button, as stated in the manual (for the D, press the green button - it's not in the manual!).

The camera cannot stop-down a screw-mount lens, so that has to be done manually, both for metering, and when taking the picture.

There is no doubt that many recent lenses, especially the digital ones, are very good indeed. However, it is worth remembering two things about digital:

1 The crop factor means that any defects in a lens are magnified.

2 The ability to examine the "digital negative" close up means that photographers have become much more critical about lens quality than they ever were with film. Whether the defects they perceive are detectable on a final print (especially one smaller than 16x20) is another matter.

For most people, most of the time, a good lens from yesteryear is still a good lens today, and if you have a lot of old lenses it is surely worth testing them before investing a large amount of money in new lenses.
That's assuming that a new digital lens exists in the focal length you want.

G

I am so very bored with RAW. I want to use RAW, but the only obvious way to go (Photoshop CS) costs $899, which is outrageous considering the size of the market.

As for the alternatives, I've tried most of them, but they all seem to have some fatal flaw. They all have unintuitive user interfaces and poor help systems.

At the moment I'm trying Bibble. It's not bad, but it lacks a proper Undo command. Sometimes if you click on the perimeter, it takes you back a few stages, but never when you want it to.

I suppose I'll have to give Capture One another try. I'm now so confused I can't remember why I didn't get on with it before.

Does anybody know of a sensible site which has compared them all?

George

The AF240Z is a reasonable auto flashgun with zoom and bounce that will work with all Pentax bodies which have a hotshoe (including Spotmatics).

It has three modes: Program, Auto and Manual. Program works like Auto, but also sets the aperture on the camera (if the camera supports this feature); Auto cuts off the flash when enough light has reached the sensor on the gun (the aperture has to be set manually), and Manual just fires.

Obviously it won't support program mode unless the camera also supports program mode. However, the SF7 DOES support program mode, so it will use the features of the flash fully. The flash does not support TTL, so this feature of the camera is not catered for.

I have several Pentax flashes, and have no complaints about this one. I find it gives more consistent results on the *ist D than some more sophisticated guns.

In the UK on Ebay, a price of £20 - £25 is normal

G