SRS have confirmed that Pentax Europe in France have one (!!) spare hood in stock and can ship it to them for me.

Superb customer service.

Perhaps on the basis that if he posts enough there will be some idiot who bites. In the same way that many online scams work: they may be obvious to many but some people will bite.

If I remember correctly, the timer is a simple switch. Do you mean it uses the timer even when the switch is not set to do so?

Hmm, I paid €48 in September, that's $56 at today's rates. I have over 5000 images there so I suppose I'm tied to it. I need to start making use of it as cloud storage to get my full money's worth but need to find the best way to separate what I want to share from what I only want to back up.

It's a superb site though, and an excellent resource. While not as active as dedicated fora, many groups are informative and useful, so I enjoy that aspect too.

We're used to getting everything for free online and at the same time we complain that we're mined for information... Nothing is free. Not even on the internet.

Hi all,

Yesterday I lost the slide-out tab for the hood of my HD 35mm f/2 lens, the part that can be removed to allow a polarising filter to be rotated. I only see replacement hoods available online from the US and most places either don't ship to Europe or it's prohibitively expensive to do so.

The part reference for the hood is PH-RBG49. I imagine the hood for the older SMC version of the lens would fit but I believe the finish will be different, so I would prefer the new version.

I've tried the equivalent tabs from my 18-55mm, 50-200mm and 16-85mm but they're all different sizes. I'm not sure if there are any lens hoods that do have a tab the same size and with better availability, but if so then I could also make do with one of them.

I've e-mailed SRS to ask, but they don't show the part on their website. If anyone can recommend anywhere else I could try then that would be very helpful.

Many thanks

That's a real shame. I haven't tried the A 24mm but I have copies of the other two and they're very good, when in good condition of course.

Regarding the Nikon, I wouldn't post photos taken with it here but I think it's OK to comment that I've bought it. One of the great things about film photography these days is that it's so easy to be brand agnostic, with prices being what they are. Sure, they've increased in recent years but there are still bargains to be had and someone who knows what to look for (and what to look out for) can get good gear at a good price.

Not at all. I won't ask here for any help with it if I have questions but I think it's fair to comment I bought it. I might even get a glassless adapter to use my Pentax M42 lenses on it, as I only have the 50mm.

Speaking of M42, my latest acquisition is now a RevueFlex 5005 film SLR, which is a rebranded Chinon CE Memotron. I was surprised to see it seems in good working order, just needs new seals and mirror bumper. It's very heavy for a 35mm SLR but good and solid and goes to 1/2000s!! It came with an Auto Revuenon 55mm f/1.4 which is also clean and working well, though focus, while smooth, doesn't have much resistance so isn't as pleasant to use as a Takumar. Will test it out on digital later.

Strangely, it also came with a Nikon flash which I believe will play very nicely with the F801S.

PM sent regarding the MX

I bought a cheapie Nikon AF 50mm f/1.8 to go on the F801S I bought a few months back which has been sitting unused as I had no lens for it. The Nikon is a little disappointing in build quality but even more so in that there are no half stops when using it in aperture priority mode. It's an unexpected limitation that I don't have with cameras that are much older. I only bought the F801S as it goes up to 1/8000s shutter speed, which gives me a lot of flexibility. The only other film camera I have that does that is the Pentax Z1, which is very similar in functionality, but uglier and doesn't take AA batteries.

The K-7 marks the beginning of the superb ergonomics that later went into the K-5, K-3 and others but was sadly marred by what was probably the worst sensor ever to be used in a Pentax DSLR. I suspect Pentax lost a lot of users due to the choice to use that sensor instead of a superior one from another maker.