I had a look at an old Soligor 400mm lens here: https://www.ephotozine.com/article/soligor-400mm-f-6-3-t2-classic-lens-review-30...

The card reader is faster and makes more sense when transferring the contents of multiple cards, for example when returning to the PC after a holiday.

There's no significant wear on an item that's designed to be removed/replaced continually. What about the wear and tear of constantly opening a rubber flap on the camera? Or on the fastening clip of a small plastic door? Even attaching the cable has its pitfalls, although likewise it's unlikely to be a problem.

I do replace SD cards after a while, but to move to larger cards over time. Almost all our 4GB cards have now gone, replaced by 8GB and now gradually by 16GB.

If the images have recorded properly it sounds like a fault with the monitor. You could try resetting the camera to the factory defaults, just in case some special effect has been accidentally turned on.

If you can find an SMC Pentax-FA 20-35mm f/4 that will serve well. They are rather rare though.

To go wider, the Samyang and Irix lenses are a good place to look. The Samyang 14mm f/2.8 is relatively inexpensive and also very sharp.

I thought I'd have a closer look at your image, and came up with this after applying levels and some sharpening.


That doesn't seem far off to me?

Don't forget models move as well as cameras and sometimes even the slightest variation in distance can make a shot softer. Just take lots of images to make sure one is spot on.

The focus is perhaps on the cheek rather than on the eye, in other words a bit closer than it should be to the camera position. It's a nice shot though, so maybe you could do it again, locking the focus point firmly on the nearest eye. Then a bit of sharpening in Photoshop and it should look very good.

"SMC Pentax-DA Interchangeable Lens Operating Manual" page 32.

TCs tend to be disappointing, but 1.4x stands the best chance of being OK. A 50/55mm f/1.8 or f/2 will be more likely to be optimal than an f/1.4 or faster.

It's in the Pentax instructions. I would believe Pentax, even if much of the time we might "get away with it" the information will be accurate. Pentax don't sell any filters, so nothing to make money out of by saying it.