John,
Many thanks, the misspelling was an embarrassment every time I received 'Notifications' for this 'Thread'. In addition, anyone doing a 'Forum Search' for the same subject, would not be entering the same misspelled details for the search and therefor would not have received the same cumulative advice that I have benefited from, with this particular 'Thread'.

Many thanks again.
Colin

One final question, without wishing to start a new thread:
How do I correct my inattentively stupid spelling of the word 'Converer' which obviously should have read 'Converter' in the Thread title?

Regards
Colin

Thanks to Charlotte's 'link' to 'e-bay',I received my 1.7x converter by Saturday morning 26 May. By Saturday afternoon I had used it to photograph a few spiders really close up. I am really pleased with the device and the resultant images. The nameplate/Label on the device, in six lines of text, states: 'PENTAX, SMC, PENTAX-F, 1.7 X, AF, ADAPTER'. The comas don't appear on the label, of course, I've used them here to serve as line separators!

This all proves the usefulness and effectiveness of the 'Pentax Forum'; within 36 hours of asking for help I had lots of advice and the necessary equipment to get on with the job! Thank you all very much.

Regards Photon/Colin

Many thanks for all the help, from so many, in such a short time. However, in view of the overwhelming advice and wondrous images, I had snapped up a Pentax SMC F AF 1.7X Teleconverter Tele/ Converter Adapter from e-bay, prior to receiving the 'Algernon' offer. In fact, my wife did it for me! Can't complain about that, can I? I just have to await it's arrival now!
Thanks again to all of you for the help. Appologies if this is becoming garbled, I feel my Blood sugar is dropping now.
Regards Photon/Colin

Thank you all for your advice.

The disappointing spider image was taken whilst using the Pentax Ring Flash, exposure was 1/180th second. Although I was not using a tripod I was resting the lens barrel in my hand against the work surface with the camera tipped so that the ring flash lamp housing was just kissing the work surface. I believe that the camera shake function was on, it's usually on by default with me! I also used the ring flash modelling light which I find helps me with critical focusing. The lens was wound out to closest focus and I moved camera back and forth towards the subject to achieve best focus point.

The images that you have posted here in response are magnificent; they are exactly what I am trying to achieve! What is this Pentax 1.7 and is it still in production?

My preference for converter use, as opposed to extension tubes is to maintain greater subject distance thus less chance of subject spooking.

I want to improve my insect photography capability. Which is the best tele-converter for use with the Pentax 100mm Macro Lens, from both past and present production tele-converters. I recently purchased a 'ASAHI OPT..TAKUMAR-A 2X TELE-CONVERTER' from 'e-bay' but I have been disappointed in the resultant images! They lack that crispness that I expect from my Pentax 100 mm Macro lens! As can be seen from my recent spider image added to the gallery on 25 May 2012.

Regards Photon

Iceblinker, Thank you for that enlightenment, excuse my ignorance; my digital experience is less than a year and I've still a lot top learn. It was a long time to wait for such a disappointment and the fear that I had damaged the camera, I had set my watch alarm and went inside to do something else on the computer.

Excuse my ignorance again but where does this noise come from, is it constant for a given serialised camera and is it constant for all ISO settings within that camera? if so could could it not be programmed, at the time of manufacture, into the chip for that individual serialised camera, thus resolving this time delay problem?

After closing of the shutter on long exposures could I take the camera off the tripod and stow in my camera bag, without switching off, whilst the chip is performing this subtraction process, without adversely affecting the image quality?

I think I had a similar K20D problem: I was trying to take long time night shots of a star configuration, in the hope of showing star trail effect of our worlds rotation within the universe. I had left the shutter open via bulb release cable and a power pack (transformer) for approx four hours in the back garden. To my dismay on closing the shutter there was no image on the rear monitor display panel and the camera appeared to have died, so I foolishly took the battery out and tested the battery voltage. By experimenting I have since concluded that on long exposures, the time to write info to the memory card is approximately equal to the exposure time plus 12 seconds. Thus an exposure of 30 minutes requires an additional 30 minutes 12 seconds to transfer digital data to the card, so you need to close the shutter then leave the camera on the tripod for that additional time! Alas I have not yet taken those star configuration shots - too dam cold at the moment; I don't want to risk condensation within the camera when I take it back indoors or trusting leaving it in the shed overnight!

Perhaps you should wear a 'film badge' to assess what sort of a dose you have received!!

My 112 minutes should read 12 minutes.