don't think they've got any choice in the matter as it's defective, if you were just returning it because you decided you didn't want it that would be another thing but they can't expect you to be able to telepathically determine if the goods are fit for sale without opening the box!

after all, if you could do that and the card was duff you wouldn't have bought it in the first place.

ahh, the only known cure for LBA!

Also the F series lens has focal length readout, so works properly with SR equipped cameras.

My Dad has the SMC-F 70-210, he actually sold his DA50-200 because he reckons the F is at least as good optically and he prefers the handling and the fact it's film compatible. Like George I have never owned a 70-210 A series so can't compare there, but I'd be impressed if the A series is better enough to justify the loss of AF and SR.

true, my Flektogon 35 is a great little lens but unmounting it can be a pain.

I've often thought about picking up one of those Rusky Jupiter 85 F2s, how does yours perform?

Agreed.

Another reason for avoiding pre-F series zooms is that they are unable to communicate their focal length to the camera. This means that if you want to use SR with them you have to go through the menus to change the focal length every time you zoom.

You have to set the focal length with old primes as well of course, but the menu comes up by itself when you turn the camera on so if you just remember to turn the camera off and on again when you change lenses you get the menu when you need it.

Personally I find the M42 lenses easier to work with than M series, because you have the Auto/Manual switch on the lens to stop down the lens and you can therefore use Av mode with all apertures. Possibly just the way I work though. I agree that other lens mounts or M42s without the A/M switch would be a pain.

no problem Lee, I'm not as good with other systems but this is what I understand of it:

The Canon DSLRs are compatible with all EOS system lenses, but no FD lenses unless you use an optical addaptor.

The Nikon DSLRs vary from body to body. The mount hasn't physically changed in a very long time, but some of their models are picky about what they will work with. The low end models tend to be the picky ones, with D200 and above being more or less fully compatible with AI and later Nikor lenses.

Olympus changed their mount to go digital, so all lenses can only be used via an addaptor, but their new mount is quite easily adaptable so it could be worse.

Minolta/Sony mount is compatible with their AF lenses, but like Canon they changed mounts to go AF so pre-AF lenses don't fit. I'm not sure if there's and addaptor.

Leica are fully backwards compatible and as far as I know are the only company which even Pentax can't match for backwards compatibility. I believe you can even use lenses for the Leicaflex on the R series bodies.

Lee,

It all depends on the flange to film distance the camera is designed for. In this respect, all brands are not created equal.

Nikon have a longer flange to film distance than Pentax, which means to achieve infinity focus it would be necessary to mount the lens INSIDE the Nikon body. Clearly this is not feasable, if for no other reason than the mirror would get in the way.

Canon on the other hand have an unusually short flange-to-film distance, which means it is possible to mount more or less anyone's lenses on a Canon via an adaptor, and have them work in stop down metering mode much like M42 lenses do on Pentax. You loose absolutely all automation including lens stop down, so it can't be said that they work as well as they do on a Pentax DSLR, but they can be made to work.

I think the deal is similar with Olympus, you can get an adaptor from more or less anything to Olympus 4/3rds mount (I think their flange to film distance is even shorter than Canon's)


It is also possible to make an adaptor to go, say, K mount to Nikon F. Unfortunately to maintain infinity focus these adaptors have to use optical elements, which means they degrade image quality a bit and act as short tele-converters (usually ~1.3x).

they are by comparison to what they are like with a *ist series, which expose properly in stop down metering

don't get me wrong, I use my 200mm F4 and Tamron 90mm F2.5 no problems on my K10D, but they are a hell of a lot easier to use on the older cameras where the stop down metering works reliably.

great as the K10D is, if you want to use M series lenses you are actually better off with the K100D.

The K10D has metering issues with the old lenses which makes using the M lenses with it a pain. You can get the hang of it's idiosyncrasies, but it's much easier on the K100D which meters properly with old glass. This is the only major flaw in an otherwise dangerously close to perfect camera. Perhaps it was designed by Persians?