The foam used for seals and shock absorbers in the 1970s is subject to degradation with time. It basically fragments and causes a dreadful mess.

It's an easy job though to have the foam replaced before this happens, and this should be done at the very first sign of decay.

Yes there is a manual mode. You can use any Pentax lens from the Spotmatic era onwards.

The M42 screw thread lenses are usued in stop down mode and need the Adadper K, as indeed would your K1000.

The K and M series lenses have no electrical contacts and need to be used with stop down metering in manual and Av (aperture priority) modes only, after actiavting a menu option "Using Aperture Ring"

A series lenses are fully functional, but of course manual focus.

All AF lenses are fully functional.

Hope that helps, if you search the forum you will find this discussed many times. Welcome!

Lenses of the same era as the one I described do tend to have a lot of blades.

I would suspect that the SLR lens with auto diaphragm led to fewer, thinner blades to increase the speed of stop down.

I don't know which lens had the most blades.

A manual focus lens of gigantic proportions that may be very difficult to use. Not the thing for rapid action shots, that's for sure.

I wouldn't waste my money. You'd be better off with the Pentax 55-300mm and cropping the image.

Virtually circular apertures seem to be the objective, and the number of diaphragm blades is a significant part of that.

I was given a very old lens today, a Goerz Anastigmat Celor 150mm f4.8, and thew diaphragm has a staggering 18 or more blades. They don't make them like this any more! No coating though....

Fingers crossed then!

It's worth reminding everyone who doesn't realise the significance that we always should format a card in the camera it will be used in.

Welocme to the forum Ben. I don't know about January sales, but bear in mind that on 1st January VAT goes back up to 17.5% so prices may increase slightly.

The K-x will be fine and many battery issues are probably related to users not using the recommended battery types. Rechargeables seem to be most favoured.

I would talk to SRS, who have earned their place on this forum with excellent service and good pricing. A rare combination! Forum members get free shipping.

The simplest explanation is a faulty card.

Glasses will not help if they are varificals. You need unaided vision.

The effect is due to there being a correct viewing distance for a print that depends upon the focal length of the lens used.

If you view an ultra-wide image very close, looking into the image as if it were a real scene, then the perspective will be correct. A standard lens should be viewed further away and a telephoto lens image even further away.

We get strange perspective effects with these lenses because we view them at the wrong distance, usually a fairly consistent comfortable distance.

This is why old Rolleiflex portraits seem to loom out at you - they are short focal lengths and we are looking at them from too far away.

This all goes to show why lenses only ever give correct perspective, regardless of focal length.

The image will appear totally natural is you move your eyes very close to the screen. If you can focus about 3 inches away, then give it a try.