Thanks for your suggestions guys . . it's back to eBay for me.

I'm embarrassed to say . . . "Why didn't I think of that".

Cheers.

Hi all,

I have a favour to ask any camera repairers out there, or anybody else for that matter who might have what I'm looking for.

Does any of you have a K body mount going spare, gathering dust, generally forgotten, that you would be willing to part with.

For a long time I have wanted to make a ringflash holder for a reversed lens for macro work and all I need is the mounting plate from any old K mount camera, any make will do. I don't even need the lens locking pin as I haven't figured out how to employ it on my proposed adapter. I'll probably fabricate something, Heath Robinson style, or rely on duct tape.

I know I can pick up 'spares or repairs' bodies from eBay reasonably cheaply but I can't bring myself to wreck a Pentax camera, no matter what state it might be in, and I'm not sure which other bodies use the same mount.

If anyone is willing to part with one, and I'm happy to pay for it, I'd be eternally grateful for your help. Or, perhaps someone can advise me as to which other (cheaper) bodies I might pick up having the same mount that I can dismember.

Please reply here or email me or leave a personal message for me.

Thanks in anticipation (bows & scrapes, tugs forelock (if I had one), and generally grovels in an undignified manner ), thanks.

One more trick you might try is to remove the batteries for a long period, say overnight, and try again next day. Stranger things have been known.

BTW: It goes without saying (but I'm going to anyway) that when you finally resolve the issue, double check with Sigma that your item is 100%compatible (get it in writing) with the DS, and check with Pentax that there are no known issues between the two.

Oh, and don't reconnect the flash until you have established compatibility from the manufacturers.

Better still, try and get your money back for the Sigma kit and buy a Pentax flash gun.

Regards.

I'm not sure if reloading the firmware erases any custom/confused/corrupted settings. You might try doing a Reset to factory default. I can't remember exactly where the reset function is, probably at the end of the main menu list. This will set all of the internal commands back to how they were when you received it so you will have to re-enter any changes that you have made. I don't believe that a factory reset affects the shot counter.

Hope that helps.

I'm not familiar with your camera so I'm not aware of any inherent problems with this model, but you could check the following general items:

1: Does the battery need replacing ? If its more than a year or so old and the camera has had regular use it probably does. Have you replaced the battery?
2: Is there any obvious sign of corrosion or contamination on either the battery contacts or the battery compartment of the camera which might cause a bad contact ?
3: Is the battery charging correctly? Are you able to check its charging/charged voltage with a meter?
4: Has the camera ever been dropped or subjected to any other abuse that might have damaged it ?
5: Is it still in warranty ? If so, take it back to the shop from where you bought it or contact Pentax Service Department.

Regards.

Outstanding. Thanks for taking the trouble Brian. Those images are impressive too.

I have a set of A (as opposed to Automatic) tubes that do have the contacts and they work fine with my Super-A and its 'A' lenses but they would not work with my istDS.

These tubes refused to work correctly with it and the reason turned out to be fairly simple but as is the way with technical stuff, it took a while to discover.

There is a contact on the lens which I think is the ground or return connection that ordinarily would connect to the body via a pin (or maybe just the exposed metal of the body mount) on the lens mount on the body. Adding 'A' extension tubes obviously needs to maintain all of these electrical contacts . . . but mine didn't.

The reason was that the lens mounts on each of my rings was painted black, which is a fairly good electrical insulator, and there was no pin connecting through the tube for this particular contact.

The solution was simply to scrape the paint off of the lens mount at the point corresponding to this 'ground' contact on each of the extension tubes. Jobs a good'n, all lenses then worked perfectly with the DS.

These are Jessops tubes (not the best I know but they served me well for a number of years) and whilst they wowrked OK (or seemed to) with my Super-A, they did not work with the DS until I carried out the 'surgery' above.

I discovered all this with the help of another chap who's name escapes me, but if he's a member of this forum, and remembers my dilemma from about a year to 18 months ago . . . thank you again for your help.

You're forgiven. Thanks for the feedback. I'd love to be trying this out for myself but my istD is in UK and my bellows is in Spain. Come Wednesday, we will all be together again and I can hopefully have some serious playtime.

Everybody . . . aaarrrrrr.

As you've 'got your kit out' so to speak, do you have a short extension tube you could stick between camera and bellows to see if that works. You might even be able to leave the grip on.

Actually, I think the bellows manuals suggest having the rig slightly lens heavy when on a tripod so it might benefit from leaving the grip on if possible as the tripod mount would then be closer to the camera body giving a bit more room in front to work in.

Brian,

Thanks for taking the trouble to produce and share these images. Having seen them, I am cinvinced that I had to 'assemble' my bellows on my DS in the same way.

It's interesting to note that the grip doesn't get in the way.

I'm thinking that this setup would be 'safer' for the camera with the introduction of a 12mm (or similar) extension tube (as suggested by another forum member) between camera and bellows. Apart from the very complicated mathematics involved in calculating the magnification ratio or reproduction size (which most of us probably are not really interested in coz all we want is a big photo of something small), I can't see why it shouldn't still work.

The scales are out of the window in our Pentax digital world anyway because they are graduated for 50 & 55mm lenses and a 35mm frame size.

Thanks Malcolm. I've only seen reference to the III variant and have no knowledge of it, but I'm reassured that somebody else, with more information to hand, has come to the same conclusion as me, that is that the A and the M variant at least, are one and the same.

Unless anybody else knows different . . .