Tried the kit (18-55) lens on my me super last night thinking it would give a very wide view (it did) and maybe a mild fish eye effect. what i wasn't ready for was that it wouldn't focus properly on the me. ie at a distance of 1.5 metres on the me (at 18mm) i had to set focus on infinity to get it crisp, and at 55mm i had to set it just a tad short of infinity.
can anyone explain this?

or for hyperfocal distance you could look here.

http://www.nyip.com/tips/tip_hyperfocl898.html

john

My converter arrived today, it's a Tamron 1.4x Pz-AF mount. I was told it was a PK-AF, but now find it isn't. It seems to connect up cleanly even with my old "A"lenses and focusses well with my autofocus lenses.
Should i be worried that it's Pz-AF?

I am wondering if pentax make thes in an AF fitting so that i can use it on the istds? I can't find one on here, pentax uk, jessops or park cameras. Should i give up?
john

Thanks chaps, for the wide end i got the 18-55 pentax DA which i am so far happy with. I saw a new 75-300 FAj on the park cameras website yesterday at 109.99gbp and thought it would be worth a go at that price. It came today and I'm hoping to try it out tomorrow. I have seen negative comments about it above 200mm, but because of the 1.5x multiplication i doubt I'll use it at that sort of focal range very often (nice to have it in the bag though!). I also wonder if people who are complaining are using the correct support/settings for such a long focal length.
At least if it is a bad 'un it's a cheap bad 'un and i can get rid of it and try something else.
John

this is a better link http://www.jessops.com/search/viewproduct.cfm?PRODUCT=SIG703004DMS2PAF&BRAND=&CONTINUE=false&FEATS=&FIRSTPRICE=0&KEYWORD=&LEVEL=&MODELNUMBER=&NEWQUERY=True&NODE=143&ORD=ASC&ORDERBY=&QUANTITY=10&RECENT=0&REFINE=&SEARCH_FOR=&SEARCHNODE=0&SEARCHURL=dointellisear

I'm currently using an old but very good Vivitar series 1 (markII) 70-210 zoom on my new *istds. It works very well at the football as you can see here http://www.ephotozine.com/gallery/showlargepic.cfm?photoid=189066

The manual focus is relatively simple as everything is almost at the infinity setting anyway fom my seat in the stands, so very little adjustment is required. For things like woodland shots of birds though it is very difficult to focus quickly, just because of the wide area covered on the barrel, and usually by the time i have focussed the bird has flown.

I have looked at a couple of sigma autofocus lenses
http://www.jessops.com/search/viewproduct.cfm?PRODUCT=SIG703004DMS2PAF&BRAND=&CONTINUE=false&FEATS=&FIRSTPRICE=0&KEYWORD=&LEVEL=&MODELNUMBER=&NEWQUERY=True&NODE=143&ORD=ASC&ORDERBY=&QUANTITY=10&RECENT=0&REFINE=&SEARCH_FOR=&SEARCHNODE=0&SEARCHURL=dointellisear


http://www.jessops.com/search/viewproduct.cfm?product=SIG552004DCSAF&BRAND=&CONTINUE=false&FEATS=&FIRSTPRICE=0&KEYWORD=&LEVEL=&MODELNUMBER=&NEWQUERY=True&NODE=143&ORD=ASC&ORDERBY=&QUANTITY=10&RECENT=0&REFINE=&SEARCH_FOR=&SEARCHNODE=0&SEARCHURL=dointellisear&SECONDPRICE=&SHOWCASEID=&STARTROW=1&SUBS=&WORD_SEARCH=N&
and wondered what others thought of them or any (cheap!) pentax gear on the market. My budget is low, around 150 quid max.
thanks in advance
john

from internetcamerasdirect, based in huddersfield.

My new istds and 18-55 kit arrived today (only ordered yesterday afternoon), I haven't stopped playing with it since it arrived! Even the wife is happy as I "saved" 150 quid having got it for 652 pounds!

so far I have found the Ds to be excellent in almost every way, with all my old pentax lenses fitting and working well.
The only slight problem I have had is some horizontal banding on some shots taken at high iso 1600 + in machine gun mode. This disappears when pictues are resized.