After posting a couple of queries I thought I'd introduce myself a bit. I've been taking photos "properly" for about ten years now, started on a P30, then an Olympus OM-10, Nikon FM2, Eos 1nrs, Mamiya RZ67, but have now returned to Pentax as my main camera of choice for practicality.

I'm using a P30 (P3 in the US) with a 50mm and a 35mm M-series lenses, and recently got an absolute bargain of an early K1000 with 35mm Optomax, 200mm Optomax and another 50mm M series all for £53.00. I do mainly landascape photos although with a young daughter I'm venturing more into candid portraiture.

I hope that I can share some of my experience with you guys and pick up some tips at the same time.

Regards

Slacker

Aha, found in the K1000 manual on the Pentax site. There's a thing you press in the mount itself. Panic over.

I'm in a bit of a bind, or rather my body mount is. I recently bought a K1000 from Ebay to accompany my P30 on my travels and it came with some additional lenses.

Two of them are the older screw type Optomax lenses and came with a PK body mount adapter. But now that I've fitted it, I can't get it out. It's not a major problem as the main lens that I'l be using on the camera is one of the screw fit lenses, but I will need to get the body mount off at some point.

Does anyone have any experience of the body mount adapter, and any hints on getting it off.

Thanks everyone.

Cool, that's a great bit of info. I'm running a test film through now as I'm going on holiday soon and intend to take it as the main camera. It is slightly inconvenient having to press the DOF button to get the correct meter reading, but I can live with that, and it saves me buying a new body.

I've had the body and lenses for about 5 years, bought them second hand, but only used them once before and then put them aside until I had the time to find out where the problem is (I have other cameras so I wasn't in any rush).

Although I like the P30 a lot (nice size, everything where it should be) my model has a "sticky" shutter speed wheel so it'd difficult to turn it one way compared to the other - any hints on that? I may keep my eye out for a K1000 (I forget about batteries until it's too late), or have even been considering buying an el cheapo Centon K100 or K200. I know it's sacrelige, but it's the lenses that are taking the pictures after all.

Any tips on freeing up the Tv wheel? And thanks again for the input so far - really helpful.

EDIT = just downloaded the manual - thanks Matt

Right then, from what you're saying it looks like there's a problem with the body.

Essentially the metering is working. But it's only metering as if the lens is always wide open so when I change aperture (camera on Manual) the light meter stays where it is.

It must be the body as it's less likely that both the lenses are iffy. I think I'll need to get an A lens to try it out and then go from there.

Thanks for the input.

Hello everybody, I'm not sure if this is a problem or not but:

I have a P30 body and two M series lenses - 35mm and 50mm, but on the P30 body it doesn't meter the aperture that is selected, to get the proper reading I need to press the depth of field preview. I'm running a film through to see if the camera is actually stopping down when the photo is taken or not, but what I want to know is if this is to be expected with combination of equipment or if my camera/lenses are dicky.

I'll soon find out when I get the film processed but I thought I'd ask for some input from you guys on this.

Again if you're in the UK but not so tight a time frame:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=15240&item=3825...

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=11720&item=3825...

If you're in the UK:

- If you're quick:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=15240&item=3825...

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=15240&item=3825...

I'd recommend using the Cokin filter system, this means that you can use the filters on all your lenses using the holder rather than buying one of each filter for each lens.

www.cokin.com

I use the P series so I can swap between 35mm and medium format.