...well, as good as.

I've had a bad cataract in my right eye for a couple of years, so I use my camera with my left eye. A month or so ago my optician said that I now have a cataract in my left eye, so I was referred to the cataract clinic. The consultant says I should have both lenses replaced and I am booked in for the end of August. The good news is that they should be able to correct my rather bad near sightedness (currently requiring 9.8 dioptres correction). So for the first time since I was 5 I will be able to see distance without glasses! So perhaps I will be able to get some sharp focus with my manual focus lenses after all.

The flip side, of course, is that I will need reading glasses. Currently I use a slight dioptre adjustment with my K100D for the slight long sightedness that I have. Does anyone have experiences the would like to share about using a camera after cataract surgery? Will the dioptre adjustment on the viewfinder be sufficient to see the settings in the viewfinder or should I start looking out for dioptre viewfinder adapters?

Richard

Valid point, but I've not had experience of it. (Neither as victim or ... <g>

Sure. But I have CD-R (Sony!) that are 6 or 7 years old and are now getting unreliable. By unreliable, I mean, these are CDs on which I recorded my 70's LPs to play in my CD player, and some tracks have started to 'jump'. Luckily I have the original recordings on a hard disk, which still works fine, and since I got a lead from my PC to my stereo I usually play those from my PC.

What irks me is that I have just finished scanning the albums of photos my grandfather took in Shanghai in the 30s. The photos have lasted almost 80 years - some were kept in quite appalling conditions - yet I reckon that the scans will have to be copied between media several times if they are likely to survive another 80 years.

That's what is called 'progress' these days.

Richard

Tape can be stretched, of course. However, if you have several tapes and use a different one each day for backup then at most you'll only lose a day's worth of pictures.

Even hard disks fail. It is prudent to buy more than one hard disk and use them in a RAID1 or (if you have more than two disks) RAID5 array. That way, when one disk fails you will not lose data, but you will be warned when the drive fails and so you can act immediately. Of course this sort of arrangement would best be done with your desktop machine (I am not aware if there are laptop RAID cards or whether it makes sense anyway). With a little more money you could get a Network Accessed Storage (NAS, a file server box that connects to your LAN) with several disks in a RAID array. Even better if you can arrange your NAS to be in another building! (OK, I realise that few people have a LAN that includes another building, but you do have to take into account fire and theft when you design a back up strategy.)

Richard

Since the pic is a crop, couldn't you have just focussed on one boat and then re-centre by cropping afterwards?

I sympathise with you. A month ago I went to a motor race meeting and failed to get a single good shot from panning. I had lots of shots of the middle and back end of the cars <g>. The best shots I got was when a car hit the gravel and I was able to take photos of the tow truck pulling it out!

Richard

For an SMC-A 50/1.4?

A tenner would be good these days, and on ebay your A50/1.4 could well go for £100, but not £250, that's more like the price for an A50/1.2 .

See the "Used Lens price Guide" on www.mflenses.com.

For example, searching for SMC 50 gives:

Pentax SMC 50mm f1.4 A-Series lens. GBP 87.00
Pentax SMC 50 1:1.2 Asahi opt. Lichtriese Neuwertig EUR 242.66 ASHAI Pentax SMC 50mm f1.2 Fast Prime Lens MINT 1.2 GBP 117.00
PENTAX SMC 50mm 1:1.2 f1.2 fast prime lens GBP 139.00

The last three, I guess, are K rather than A.

Searching for Pentax 50 gives:

Pentax 50mm 1:1.2 Lens - Fast GBP 127.00
Pentax 50mm 1:1.2 Lens - Fast GBP 320.00
SMC Pentax 50mm f/1.2 A 1:1.2 lens USD 440.00

The first ione is perhaps a K, and the second is an A, perhaps?

That suggests, about $440 (£220) to £320 for A50/1.2 and about 90 quid for an A50/1.4.

Richard

Umm since KAF3 is KAF2 + SDM but without the screw autofocus, doesn't this mean they are taking away a feature? So why is this "good news"?

I take the point that the KAF3 mount will make the lens cheaper, but even so, calling KAF3, and the prospect of all future Pentax lemses having KAF3, "good news" seems like "New Labour" grade spin to me.

Richard

I lived in Nottingham for ten years, so I know what you mean! However, during the evening on a Friday or Saturday night if you target just the hen parties, I would imagine that you could get away with it. In fact if they were drunk enough (well, when are they not drunk?) they may even suggest an impromptu shoot!

I think the thing that I would find the most annoying is the flash. Otherwise, it is no different to anyone else gawping at you in a busy street. Conversely, it is probably the flash that protects him, because people are too startled to take instant action.

Richard

Thanks everyone. After reading the other threads I think I might delay this mod for a while - I am due for a cataract op soon, and I guess if it is a fiddly task I would better do it with my new eyes!

Richard

Most of my lenses are manual focus. Out of interest I took a look through an old film camera I have and realised how much easier it was to focus (and how much brighter the view finder is!). So maybe it is time to do something about the focus screen on my K100D.

The Katzeye screens are $105 + shipping, so I guess that'll be roughly £70 which I could use to buy a nice old manual focus lens to play with.

I looked on ebay and found I can get a cheap split screen from China for a tenner (plus a fiver for shipping), and I thought, for fifteen quid, why not?

So can anyone give me a reason why not?

Richard

Hmmm the only problem is that I use my left eye to look through the viewfinder because I have a cataract in the right I was referred a month ago, and I am still waiting for the hospital appointment to come through. The good news is that once I have that operation done (apparently they'll do both eyes because I am so shortsighted) I will have better eyesight than I have had for 40 years and hence I am preparing to ramp up my photography after that!

Richard