Thanks, John.

I suspected this might be the case. With the adapter they would work, but not ideally. I guess there's no free lunch in the wonderful world of photography. It appears, then, that I'll be nicked for the cost of new lenses regardless of which make of DSLR I buy.

The other DSLR I have been mildly attracted to is the Maxxum 7D due to its image stabilization system. However, I've had such good luck in terms of reliability with my Pentax stuff that I'm inclined to stick with Pentax.. My plan is to wait a bit for prices to come down.

Ted

I have several Spotmatic bodies and thus a number of Super Takumar excellent lenses in M42 mount. If I were to purchase a iSTDS would it be possible to mount any of my lenses to it?

And if so, how would the focal lengths change? I assume they'd only work as preset lenses?

Ted

I can only tell you where I got my collars.

From the Wein Cells (MRB400) which come with little felt black collars that act as spacers, I suppose. I merely removed them from the dead Weins and fitted them onto the 392's. As both batteries have a small side and a large side, the collar fits on the small side, but in the case of the 392's, the + side was opposite of the Weins.

My suggestion would be to buy some MRB400's and when they wear out in 4 to six months, pull the collars off and use them on whatever batteries you can find that will work. The collars look to be reusable indefinitely.

I am assuming you can get the Weins in the UK.

Regards,

Ted

Let me immediately confess that I'm no techie, merely a guy who has hung around Spotmatics since 1968. The Wein cells, I have found, work OK, once you figure out that you have to peel off the covering and let them sit around for up to a half hour as they are essentially much like hearing aid batteries.

Not knowing this initially - as the packet said nothing about it - I bought several that "didn't work." After I figured out that you had to let them sit about before installation, they worked just fine, but lasted far less than six months, frustrating to me as the old mercury batteries had seemed to last forever.

Recently I learned about the theory of the bridge circuit on other forums and took the risk of buying silver batteries. I think I bought 392's and they seem to work fine. However, to get them to fit - as they are smaller - I had to take the little felt collars off the equally small Weins and fit them onto the 392's, but that meant I had to put them in the reverse of the Weins. I immediately checked the Spotmatic meter readings with 392's against my Gossen meter and readings were basically either the same, or within a half-stop of each other. Using the same meter with a number of my other cameras (Bessa R, Bessa L, Yashica GSN, Olympus XA) I have found that the half-stop variant is not uncommon.

And, of course, the silvers are much cheaper.

Ted

Don't know what postage would cost, but Eric Hendrickson, in Sharps Chapel, Tennessee (a retired head of the Pentax repair department) does excellent work for very reasonable prices. He does a complete CLA, including meter photo cells for $60USD.

You could email him at [email protected]">[email protected] and ask him what he'd charge to fix the broken meter knob.

Ted

After much experimentation over the years, I've settled on Kodak Tri-X developed in Kodak's D-76. I buy it in 100 foot rolls and bulk load it, which vastly reduces the per-roll cost.

I've learned the hard way that the reusable cassettes are not infinitely reusable. After about four uses one runs the risk of getting a scratched negative from tiny bits of schmutz sticking to the felt lips. So I toss them after the fourth use. (Of course this adds slightly to the per-roll cost, but when you amortize a cassette over four uses, it isn't much).

If I don't really need the ISO 400 speed, I'll use Plus-X or TMAX 100. I still develop in D-76, although I've tried TMAX developer with TMAX 100 and can't really see what I would term a significant difference.

I've also used Ilford films and they are excellent. It's just that I grew up with Tri-X and can more easily predict what I'm going to get with it. Perhaps the best advice is to try them all, then settle on the combination that suits you.

Regards,

Ted