as far as I can tell it more or less works provided you don't upgrade to the latest firmware. Also probably wise to leave such things as the remote control of custom functions well alone, since the D has different functions.

That is as it appears when used with my DL2 anyway, your millage may vary.

edit: appologies, I just checked Stan Halpins website (which I suggest you bookmark Pete, it has user comments on almost all Pentax lenses) and my previous assertion about this lens is wrong, it's not the one which was SMCless and therefore you probably got a pretty good deal.

given the subject line and the price I'm going to bet that its the Pentax-A version which matches the Pentax-A 28-80 and isn't SMC coated.

I think you'll find the 50-200 will also knock spots off the Bigma in terms of optical quality inside its range (and maybe even out to 250 or so with cropping and resizing).

From what I have read the 50-500 is supposed to be optically better than the 170-500, but it's also larger and heavier. The reviews I've seen also say that it focuses faster, but since in Pentax mount it doesn't have HSM (yet) I'm not sure if that applies to us.

I'd be tempted to wait a couple of months before buying any long sigmas at the moment. We know Sigma already have HSM technology, and from what Chris@SRS has been saying it sounds like they are taking more of an interest in Pentax mount lenses. I would not be in the least surprised if HSM lenses are available in Pentax mount fairly soon after the DA* lenses come out. Even if you don't care about HSM this will drop the price of the older lenses on the second hand market, not to mention making more available as people upgrade.

I haven't used that specific lens but the CZJ lenses in PK, PKA and PKAF mounts were made under licence in Japan. The exact manufacturer seems to have varied.

My Dad has a CZJ 70-300 in PKA mount which from its styling appears to have been made by Tokina, so it might be reasonable to assume that the 28 in question is also a Tokina in disguise.

The long zooms I have from this line are of good quality (~equivalent to the Pentax 80-320) and although that is no guarantee that the wide angles will be good, I'd be quite surprised if its bad.

How to get it working:

Find the "using aperture ring" setting in the custom functions menu and set it to "permitted" (I'm looking at a *istDL2 so the exact name of the function may be different, but it will be something like that). You will probably also want to set "Preview method" to "Optical Preview", which will help with metering in manual mode.

This will allow you to fire the shutter with your old lens mounted.

It will work thusly:

With the main dial anywhere except M, the camera will function in aperture priority automatic mode with the lens wide open (the aperture ring will have no effect). This is useful for fast action where you need fast shutter speeds combined with the convenience of automatic exposure.

With the main dial in M, you get hypermanual mode, initially with no metering. You have two options as follows:

1. engage depth of field preview. The lens will stop down and you get a light meter reading as long as you keep the preview switch engaged. Proceed as per normal M mode.

2. hit the "exposure lock" button (or the green button if there is one, but I think it's tied to exposure lock on the K100D). The camera will stop down to the currently selected aperture, take a reading, set a suitable shutter speed and open up again.


Note that Shake reduction will be a bit of a pain with an old lens like this one. When you turn the camera on with an old lens mounted and SR turned on, you get a menu from which you pick the focal length. This is fine with a prime, with your zoom it means going through the menu every time you zoom. Since I don't have any old zooms which I use with my K10D I can't say for sure what the best strategy is, but I would be inclined to set SR to the longest focal length (210mm) and just turn it off if you zoom out a significant amount.

hope this helps

thats the filter, you'll need a holder and adapter ring to go with it.

I can't find such things on their own on that site, so here are links to what you're looking for on 7dayshop (it's the kood version, but it is the same size so should work just as well and if you do want to try and find the genuine Cokin one at least you'll know roughly what they look like!)

http://www.7dayshop.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=777_1&products_id=993...

http://www.7dayshop.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=777_1&products_id=993...

hey we all have to start somewhere.

the filters screw onto the thread on the front of the lens. The 18-55 has a 52mm filter thread so you will need 52mm size filters.

Alternatively if you have or intend to buy lenses with a larger filter thread (say for instance a 16-45 which is 67mm filter thread), you can use a larger filter size and a step down ring. Unfortunately I don't know where to buy these but I'm sure someone here will.

Irritatingly 7DayShop seem to have stopped selling screw on ND filters (grr!). They do still have them in Cokin P size, which can be a good way to go for filters you don't use much. With the Cokin system you get a large square filter which is held by a special holder and you buy adaptor rings for each size of lens you have. The holders can cause vignetting with very wide angles, but then so can any filter.

mine is a cheap Kood one from 7dayshop. They are certainly not the best filters in the world, but for the small amount I actually use mine it does the job very well. No glaringly obvious colour cast and a nice price.

it's very simple Pete, buy an ND filter. Probably quite a strong one, I was using a 4x (2 stop) filter on holiday with my K10D to get waterfall shots at ~1/6th of a second and ISO 100. I did have my lens opened up a couple of stops at least some of the time since 1/6th was giving me the effect I wanted, so you might get as slow as 1/2 at F22 with a 4x ND filter. Probably wise to find a stronger one if you want really slow speeds in broad daylight though.