I have a later booklet dated 1987, on the border of the A series taking over from the M series, and this lists a Copy Stand III.

Welcome to the forum, I've moved this to General Chat so more people will see it.

Maybe they haven't published it yet? Anyway, the Magic Lantern Guides seem Ok, but the K7 one would be almost identical if there is one. They don't really say much over and above what the manual says and what always seems to be missing is a bridge between books that tell you how to operate functions and books that tell you why you would want to.

Hopefully this forum will answer many questions that you may have.

The F series lenses canj be excellent and your photos certainly support that view. The only thing I find inconvenient about them is the need to switch into a Macro mode to get really close.

Not the Spotmatic era as far as I can tell. There were Copy Stands MkI and MkII but no others are listed in my Asahi Pentax manual.

If I find anything I'll come back to this later.

They should be fine and if they have an "A" setting on the aperture ring (if there is one) then totally functional.

Lenses designed for film are generally OK, but sometimes not as good as ones designed for digital. This is primarily because digital lenses have a telecentric design, where light rays are kept as parallel as possible to enable then light to spill into the wells that hold each pixel.

Any disadvantage seems to be balanced out by using just the centre of the field for an APS-C sensor, the sweet spot of any lens.

Very old lenses can give variable results, but some are still excellent.

Things have changed a lot and these days lenses seem to have a limited run in many cases. Examples are usually co-produced, such as the 18-250mm.

In ancient times a marque would have a lens on its books pretty much for ever, as a 24mm was always needed in the range, and a 28mm, and so on. Modern zooms seem more like specific one-off designs.

Fortunately they do last quite well in the market place, but it would be nice to find a new 18-250mm. I should have bought one when they were on clearance at £199.

Pentax have worked with Tokina and Tamron, and who knows who else. The Pentax versions of lenses have the finish and coatings we would expect, so presumably the basic mechanics and optical cells are co-sourced. No doubt this coperation benefits both companies.

I suspect all marques do this from time to time, including the major lens names such as Leica.

I actually meant to offer this here first, but have just realised I didn't actually make the post, so here's a link to the eBay sale:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/300591860399?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m...

If anyone wants to make an offer please do so, as I did intend to give you the chance. I would sell here for £800.00 including shipping (insured) to anywhere in the world, or £750.00 in the UK.

It's the same for all makes and incresingly manufacturers are providing the means to make fine adjustments.

I wouldn't get too anxious about it though - I have owned a lot of lenses and none so far have needed any adjustment.

It may remember third party lenses, but as they sometimes mis-report I wouldn't be at all surprised if some of them cause a problem. Nobody seems to have mentioned it as an issue yet, so it's just a theory.

A global adjustment will apply to all lenses, so may well not be appropriate.