I refer the honorable member to K-M instruction manual, Page 79 section C3 item 19,

this is the word of the manual, thanks be to Pentax

The camera will not fire unless it's set to A, or is an FAJ/DA style lens without an aperture ring but possessing electrical contacts. The Mirror lens has no contacts so the Use Aperture Ring setting must be enabled before the camera will fire with that lens attached.

nice move that man/woman

dispite the fact that the 500 mirror has no aperture ring, you will still need to set the camera to allow use of an aperture ring as described in the manual (I've never used a K-M but there will be one or two custom functions that need setting).

By default the camera will not fire unless it can control the aperture setting electronically. This is impossible with a mirror lens since it has no electronic contacts, so you have to set the camera to allow the shutter to release when no contact is possible.

fantastic, I love the Shuttleworth collection. I've never been on a flying day, but even on the ground it is amazing to see all those planes and know that every one of them CAN fly.

Pentax have been using a * to designate top quality glass since before the advent of the desktop computer much less the internet.

I effectively did so 2 years ago (still have a Windoze dual boot, but haven't booted it in months), I've never looked back. Admittedly I went Linux rather than Mac, but I very much doubt you'll regret your move away from M$.

2 years ago they were about £30, now every time I see one sell it goes for more than the last one. My advice is buy the first one you see, because the second one will be £10 more.

I have learned over the years that photography, like any art, is completely subjective. Therefore it's more or less impossible to judge badly as long as you are judging on the basis of the photograph as presented and no other bias.

The bit I would find daunting would be picking a suitable subject for the comp!


I used to regularly consider entering the weekly comp when it was part of the forum proper, I think I even entered a couple of times, but now that it's in the gallery I'm afraid I forget it's there.

In fairness, there are no Canon EOS fit MF lenses since Canon swapped mounts to go AF, and you can't make a non-optical adaptor to fit Canon FD glass to a Canon EOS camera because of the registration distance. Even if Canon and Pentax MF era lenses were identical in every way but the mount, the Pentax would be the better choice for mounting on an EOS camera.

could always go for the Toktax 12-24 F4, ok it has no SMC in Canon mount, but otherwise it should be broadly as good.