I've been using an m 1.4 for a few weeks and love it, just feel happier with the A setting as on my 1.7. maybe I'll give myself a bit longer to get used to using the green button
Rob

Hi
I have been using an smc A 1.7 50mm for a while and been very happy with it. Recently I bought an smc M 1.4 50mm, I like this even more and it has got me thinking about buying an smc A 1.4 or even one of the newer autofocus ones. Autofocus would be a bonus, but only if its still usable manually and ideally would be able to use autofocus then adjust.
Which lens should I go for? are they're any big differences or are they the same with slow improvements?
Rob

I've put the original screen back in, partly to check the difference and partly because I found the split screen annoying for macro use.
That said the screen was excellent, especially with slower lenses which I find less easy to focus due to a darker screen.
I also have turned the in focus beep back on and am trying to rely on a mixture of the camera indication and disciplining myself to look properly.
I'll see how we get on.
Rob

In the past if you knew what you were doing and could get it right first time then you used slide film.
If you needed to be able to live with exposure/framing errors you used print, or if really inept like me, black and white so that you could print it yourself.
I now use raw so that I can correct my cockups.

So maybe Jpeg is the new slide - right first time.

transit
metering is affected a bit. I tend to use spot meter mostly and that seems now to underexpose a bit - so the centre spot must be brighter than the old screen (this is under low energy light bulbs - which I guess are close to tungsten).
I'll write some more when daylight and me not being at work next coincide.

Good advice, the dioptre adjustment is often forgotton.
I always check this.
I suspect that part of the manual focusing difficulty is the relatively small size and brightness of pentamirror finders.
Do you feel that assistance from the screen is unecessary and can be avoided by better technique?
Rob

I've been finding it difficult to focus with manual focus lenses. Yes the focusing indicator usually works but I wanted the kind of aids that I used to have using manual focus in the past. THe solution seemed to be to fit a split prism focussing screen.
Looking around various forums I identified two suppliers with a good reputation. One in the US and one in Taiwan - focusingscreen.com. Budget dictated the second.
Now recieved - well packaged with all the necessary tools - latex finger stools and tweezers.
After reading and rereading the instructions on their website, fitting the screen was straightforward and took about 5 minutes.
Result:
Excellent for my pentax 1.7 50mm.
Pentacon 2.8/135(the older one with amazing bokeh due to 16 curved aperture blades) very good wide open, fine at f4 some darkening but perfectly usable at f8, centre prisms too dark above that.
Macro bellows - too dark all the time especially in the centre - but I usually use liveview for macro work.

So far I've got what I wanted for manual lenses. I always focus wide open anyway, a little restrictive for macro work.

Total cost was about $60.
reversible should you need to.
I may find some other issues with it, so I will post again with an update when I've spent more time with it.
I'm interested in other people experiences/opinions on this.

Zeiss Ikon, given to me by my Grandmother - was hers as a child in the 1920's. Then a praktika, but the meter quickly broke. Then an me-super which got me hooked and travelled around the world with me. Then a canon T90 and now my first foray into autofocus and digital a K-x.

Thanks for the advice.
I find myself hoping that the problem comes back and stays, so that I can get it fixed. Luckily I bought from a Pentax pro centre and so still have 20 months of warranty left.

My kx suddenly decided to read landscape as portrait and vice versa.
Tried reset, shooting jpeg, shooting raw, leaving batts out overnight, reinstalling firmware update etc. all with no joy. After 2 days I drove it back to the camera shop I bought it from where it behaved perfectly. Been fine for the few days since but I'm worried the problem could return. Anybody else seen this??
Rob