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Forum: Maintenance and Repair Articles
02-12-2011, 03:59 PM
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Springs can be hand made if you can find the right type of wire and wind it around a needle. The wire used for braiding shielded cables is the correct thickness/diameter but the wire is of the wrong type. Have no idea where you can get spring steel in such thin diameters, let alone what that diameter is. My measuring tools don't go that small.
Tried several camera repair shops, including those recommended by Pentax with no luck any of these parts.
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Forum: Do-It-Yourself
02-12-2011, 02:47 PM
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Take your basic 300mm m42 mount lens you see here
Attachment 83410
Add one "el cheapo" M42 to PK lens adapter shown here.
Attachment 83415
Remove the 3 screws from the bottom. Remove one or two of the flange spacers shown here.
Attachment 83413
Reassemble the lens. Store the unused flanges in a safe location. Attach the "el cheapo" bayonet adapter. Now use your lens.
Before mod shown here.
Attachment 83411
After mod shown here.
Attachment 83412
Now you have infinity and beyond on your oldie but goodie Takumar lens. Total time about three minutes and its totally reverseable.
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Forum: Pentax Camera and Field Accessories
01-16-2011, 07:53 AM
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Cut it close because of some internal ribs? and i just kept on sanding on the sidewalk to get it level (minimal tools). Haven't worked out a way to get it to stay put but am still looking. The nice thing is that you can see the whole viewfinder but you have to move year head around a bit to do so. Great eye relief. Works great with glasses too.
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Forum: Pentax Camera and Field Accessories
12-15-2010, 02:33 PM
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DIY critical eyepiece magnifier for Pentax DSLR's
Lets build an view finder eye piece magnifier for critical focus applications using Pentax parts. I started with a Pentax TE-Z 100 tele converter. The converter has several nice things going for it
1) It is inexpensive to find on e-bay.
2) It has a magnification of 1.4 x .
3) It has genuine Pentax optics.
4) It can be built in under an hour with no special tools needed.
5) Did I mention it was inexpensive.
6) It looks really cool.
A word of warning, serious injury can occur using tools, or this viewfinder magnifier. Be careful.
Obtain a Pentax TE-Z 100 Tele Converter (see photos)
Remove lens hood (unscrews) from converter.
Cut, grind, or sand away extra plastic until just above the level of the objective (small) concave lens.
This can be done by band saw (easy), jig say (hard to hold), hack saw (again, hard to hold), sanding it away by disk, belt, or even the sidewalk (yup, this is the way I did it).
Dress up the sanded edges with a file or some smooth sand paper.
Press the threaded ends of the lens shade into the objective end you just cut down. It should fit nicely if you haven't taken too much off or left too much on. (see photos)
Use a little glue to hold lens shade in place (hot glue, epoxy, whatever)
Press onto rubber padded viewfinder.
Readjust focus (diopter) control for a sharp focus.
Word of warning here. The rubber padding will not hold the magnifier securely, you will have to build a way to hold it better if you plan on moving around a lot. The other thing you must be aware of is the lens shade (now used for eye relief) can be sharp and could injure you if you came into hard contact with it. Some rubber padding would negate this.
Attachment 78343
Attachment 78344
Attachment 78345
Attachment 78346
Attachment 78347
You now have a very extreme magnifying viewfinder. You will need to move your eye around a bit to be able to see the corners of the image, but we are more concerned with critical focus here. Have fun making this and enjoy.
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Forum: Pentax Camera and Field Accessories
08-17-2010, 05:13 PM
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I will be the first to admit it, my eyes aren't what they used to be, and neither are focusing screens. The new focusing screens for digital cameras are difficult to work with. On my K20D it seemed like it could never focus properly without a great deal of difficulty and resorting to focusing tricks. After replacing the screen with another from Pentax it still was no better. The help desk said it was all my problem but that was not acceptable to my mind.
Finally sprung for the Katz-eye focusing screen and now I am somebody. Just completed testing with the following lenses.
1) Chinon f/2.8-4.2, 28-70 macro (modified to work with my camera)
2) Pentax -M f/2.8-4, 28-80 macro
3) Bower f/1.8, 85mm
4) Sears f/2.8, 135mm
5) Pentax -M f/4, 200mm
All lenses were tested way i work, low light, hand held, slow shutter speed. Finally am able achieve consistent results with focus. For my tests ISO 1600, f/4, at 1/60 second was used on all lenses. The results were quite pleasing. Just shot some pictures on the wall to check for focus.
Attachment 68578
Attachment 68579
Attachment 68580
Attachment 68581
Attachment 68582 |
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
08-26-2009, 12:34 PM
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Had my K20D camera for about 11 months now and always had a focusing problem but blamed my cheap (really cheap) poor lenses. Ponied up some ducets and bought a couple of better lenses. Now I could really see a severe back focus problem. Testing only agrivated me more. I was consistantly 1 to 3 inches back of my focus point. (I had been compensating by stopping down).
I shoot only manual focus. Usually with a tripod, and don't notice much difference with shake reduction on or off.
I called Pentax support. They referred me to the adjustment procedure for auto-focus lenses. They they asked about my lenses. Opps, we can't help you with your problem because some of them are not Pentax branded, though some were.
I kept telling them the problem was in the body and most likely the focusing screen. Not a bit of willingness to hear me out.
While I was stewing we ordered a new focusing screen from the Pentax store and the tool to replace it. (Don't order the tool, it comes with the screen).
I installed the LI-80 screen as opposed to the standard screen and tested it out on my sharp old trusty Pentax A f2.0 and it looked good.
Next I installed my 85mm f1.4 portrait lens which had about 3" of back focus. Now we focused on some real human subjects and checked the results and it was perfectly focused on the point I chose. YES. YES. YES.
I figure Pentax owes me the cost of a new focusing screen and tool but am not holding my breath. I am this .... close to chucking 30 years of shooting Pentax for another brand.
Check out the cats eye focusing screen website. Am considering a purchase there as they are better designed for low light and manual focus which is primarily where all my shooting is done.
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Forum: Pentax Camera and Field Accessories
08-12-2008, 12:33 PM
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Please correct me if we are misinformed here. I believe you are talking about the vertical shooting handle/battery holder/extra SDHC card holder. This is the one we use on our K20D.
We only take ours off to charge the batteries (double the life with two batteries instead of one). All the duplicate controls shut off if the main power is shut off (as in oppps, we forgot to power up/off). Having the controls were you need them is a very nice touch. I do 99% of my shooting manually.
It does improve handling in both horizontal and vertical, without adding much weight. We can still hand hold down to 1/30 sec on a short telephoto without too much shake and get away without a tripod during a portrait shoot if need be (and we shake a lot at my age).
The downside is that some rotating flash handles may not overcome the extra height. Shooting vertically with an eye level veiwfinder on a tripod has always been a less then satisfactory experience on a fast shoot anyways. Pentax needs to come out with a waist level viewfinder to slip on that will work vertically and horizontally.
regards,
Morgan
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
04-27-2008, 03:16 PM
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The K20D is a very nice camera. It has a few quirks that aren't mentioned in the manual.
If your battery is getting low, the external X connector will not fire, but the onboard flash will.
Using onboard or the external flash options, flash will not fire anytime the shutter exceeds 1/180 second. So much for experimenting with faster flash speeds unless you buy the pentax flash units (a little underpowered for my needs).
Flash speed is a true 1/180 second or slower. If you are getting bars from the shutter it is because your flash duration is longer than the maximum speed allowed for external flash. Just like any 35mm camera. Haven't yet checked the maximum speed with any of the pentax dedicated flashes which electronically can enable a faster synch speed.
Works well with studio lighting provided the above conditions are met.
Can't seem to get the trailing shutter speed to work properly. Pentax tech support was a little disbelieving on this one. Not a big deal, but since they show it in the manual, it would be nice if it worked. In auto mode, using onboard flash, mine fires the preflash first and exposes on the preflash. In bulb, manual, or X, it flashes at the begining of the exposure without being able to change it to the end (trailing shutter). Using external flash, it is the same in bulb, manual and X. Don't know if it is a software problem or what.
Not yet tried with wireless transmitters.
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