[Arjay Bee]

Got a GBH taking off with my vintage k20d and DA200mm

Great shot, Daniel, thanks for sharing.

[mzsaunders]

Not sure this is the right place to post this, but I'm after a bit of advice. It's not strictly a K20D issue - it could apply to any plastic bodied camera with a steel lens mount, but in my case a K20D is the subject.

I took a punt on a damaged K20D last year. It had clearly been dropped with a heavy lens attached as the mount was off the body and badly distorted. £47 for the body, about £20 for a new mount and a tenner or so for a battery had me up and running.

Because the mount had been torn off, the screw threads were all partially stripped in the plastic body. They were just about tight enough to hold (as a precaution, I have avoided heavy lenses), however the camera has suffered from some more rough handling (not by me) and the mount is off again. I haven't tried refitting it and suspect that now is the time to address the issue properly. As I see it, options are:

• Source some slightly larger screws to cut new threads in the body (hopefully, without needing to adapt the mount itself)
• Supplement the screws with glue, or use something like Loctite
• Replace the body (I'd be stretching affordability there)

Ditching the 'o' ring and sacrificing weather resistance may be necessary, as compressing the ring adds to stress on the threads.

Any ideas anyone?

Thanks,

[ChristianRock]

Not sure this is the right place to post this, but I'm after a bit of advice. It's not strictly a K20D issue - it could apply to any plastic bodied camera with a steel lens mount, but in my case a K20D is the subject.

I took a punt on a damaged K20D last year. It had clearly been dropped with a heavy lens attached as the mount was off the body and badly distorted. £47 for the body, about £20 for a new mount and a tenner or so for a battery had me up and running.

Because the mount had been torn off, the screw threads were all partially stripped in the plastic body. They were just about tight enough to hold (as a precaution, I have avoided heavy lenses), however the camera has suffered from some more rough handling (not by me) and the mount is off again. I haven't tried refitting it and suspect that now is the time to address the issue properly. As I see it, options are:

• Source some slightly larger screws to cut new threads in the body (hopefully, without needing to adapt the mount itself)
• Supplement the screws with glue, or use something like Loctite
• Replace the body (I'd be stretching affordability there)

Ditching the 'o' ring and sacrificing weather resistance may be necessary, as compressing the ring adds to stress on the threads.

Any ideas anyone?

Thanks,

You could also try to use a bit of glue on the screws to make sure that they stay in. Maybe the common kind of glue (like Elmer's) that would break and let go if you tried to unwind the screws. I would probably try that instead of larger screws. Just be very careful to use the minimum possible amount of glue, you don't want excess glue in there somewhere.

And if possible only use small light primes from now on...

[Trey45]

White Out correction fluid is what I would use to "lock" the screws in. Easily removed if required.

[UgurUgurlu]

K20D
Smc-m 50mm 1.7

[zekewhipper]

You could also try to use a bit of glue on the screws to make sure that they stay in. Maybe the common kind of glue (like Elmer's) that would break and let go if you tried to unwind the screws. I would probably try that instead of larger screws. Just be very careful to use the minimum possible amount of glue, you don't want excess glue in there somewhere.

And if possible only use small light primes from now on...

I would go wth slightly larger screws if their head height and form will allow it AND the Loctite.

[wildman]

Catbird with k20d at 560mm

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Last edited by wildman; 01-23-2017 at 09:45 AM.

[ChrisPlatt]

I just purchased a clean low-mileage K20D for my wife to try dSLR photography with.
She is a longtime Pentax K1000 owner but has been using a Nikon P7000 digital lately.
I hope she enjoys her new Pentax and gets nice results like yours.

Chris

[ChristianRock]

I just purchased a clean low-mileage K20D for my wife to try dSLR photography with.
She is a longtime Pentax K1000 owner but has been using a Nikon P7000 digital lately.
I hope she enjoys her new Pentax and gets nice results like yours.

Chris

It's a great camera to learn with, I think! At least it was for me. Of course the quality of the pictures will have more to do with the lenses. I believe you have quite a few good ones

Here's something I just edited from over a year ago, when I still had the K20D, with an old cheap 24mm manual focus lens.

[wildman]

Another K20D shot...

[ChristianRock]

Another K20D shot...

Stunning! What kind of PP did you do on this?

[wildman]

Stunning! What kind of PP did you do on this?

Hard to explain. I do everything pretty much manually and never use presets or "auto" anything - just trust my eye.
The single most important thing I do is pay particular attention to tone (luminosity) in ACR - get that right and you are half way there.
Then on to PS for a manual WB, lift the shadows if needed, mid tone contrast, fine tune saturation color channels etc. Finally manually sharpen.

That's more or less it in a nutshell. Of course every file is unique so every file needs particular attention to particular problems.
P.S I almost always shot RAW.

[ChristianRock]

Hard to explain. I do everything pretty much manually and never use presets or "auto" anything - just trust my eye.
The single most important thing I do is pay particular attention to tone (luminosity) in ACR - get that right and you are half way there.
Then on to PS for a manual WB, lift the shadows if needed, mid tone contrast, fine tune saturation color channels etc. Finally manually sharpen.

That's more or less it in a nutshell. Of course every file is unique so every file needs particular attention to particular problems.
P.S I almost always shot RAW.

Thank you! That was very helpful!

[E-man]

Well, I think I kinda sorta just joined this club. I just put down a winning bid for a kinda sorta K20D (aka Samsung GX20). The contrarian in me just likes the novelty of having the less common variant of something. I've been amazed by the beautiful images y'all have posted here and I look forward to trying mine out when it arrives. I briefly had a Samsung GX1L several years ago, which I gave to my then-girlfriend. She still has it and loves it. I've accumulated way too much camera equipment of late so I'm going to have to make some decisions come spring.

[35mmfilmfan]

I've accumulated way too much camera equipment

Please define ! :-)

Tony