Hello to all my faithful watchers as well as random passers-by,

It's been a long time since I posted any journal and frankly all I wanted to tell was told by my photo submissions. However, now there are things I want to tell you that can't be told by a photo.

First of all, I had to send my main lens - the Tamron 17-50/2.8 to the service due to severe backfocus which I didn't notice until recently. Due to this, I've been "stuck" with my Pentax F50/1.4 ever since and frankly, despite being a great lens, it is sometimes too long, especially for any "street" photo. Not having a sack of cash around, I started to investigate how to acquire some high quality lenses for a decent price.

Now, I recently said that even after half a year, my camera doesn't cease to surprise and amaze me and it is true. One of the biggest advantages of shooting PENTAX is the backward compatibility with pretty much any lens Pentax has ever produced and also great compatibility with all those cheap, oh so cheap and good, M42 lenses.

People, who know, what M42 is, skip this section:

(M42 is a legacy lens mount developed after WWII which was used by virtually every SLR producer until the 70's. Unlike modern mounts which are essentialy bayonet mounts, M42 lenses have to be screwed in the mount, and I mean it literally, not as a rude word, the diameter of the thread is 42 milimeters, hence the M42. Those lenses are fully manual and most of them don't have any electrical contacts to communicate aperture let alone focus confirmation to the bodies and if they do have any contacts, they mostly don't work with modern adapters. Yes, I said adapters. You can use M42 lenses pretty well with an adapter on Canon cameras (and if you have a chip to glue on it, you even get some metering in manual mode and focus confirmation), they don't generally work with Nikon, due to the F-bayonet being closer to the mirror, therefore there is danger of damaging the mirror. So, the only adapters working with nikon are essentialy working as extension rings as well, preventing the lenses from achieving focus on infinity. There is an adapter by hama that incorporated an optical element which allows for the infinity focus but some people say the optical element rather degrades the Image Quality. Pentax only needs a simple adapter, preferably made By Pentax, and all of these M42 lenses work well, give focus information, benefit from the in-body stabilization and so on and so on.)

So, after this history lesson, let's continue. I want to my local camera shop where they also maintain a large used equipment store and picked up the M42 adapter. I also chose a very very very very cheap lens made in Eastern Germany so I had no faith in it but it was in mint condition so I thought that if it doesn't work out, I won't have spent much on this experiment. It is the Pentacon 135 mm/2.8.Well, I was really surprised by its color rendition and contrast. I was less thrilled by its apparent softness but then I read this article:

[link]

and immediately realized that no matter how hard I try to focus manually, I will never be any good at it as long as the focusing screen is 'lying'. This is why I started looking for a focusing screen for manual focus. Many of you might remember that in the old days of film shooting, there was no autofocus and people focused using a sofisticated device in the viewfinder. It looks like a circle that is darker when you are out of focus and gets crystal clear when in-focus. There is also something called split-screen which is esentially a small circle cut in half which will render the image...well...cut in half, unless you focus. When in focus, the image looks normal.

Now, there is a ton of cheap focusing screens on e-bay but most people will tell you, they are not as clear as the original focusing screens in your camera and also, the focusing-aid tends to go black as soon as you stop down to f/5.6. There is also the very very expensive Katzeye focusing screen that has an optional surface modification that brightens the viewfinder even more in the same light than the original screen (I don't know how. It might be black magic or fresnel lenses or both). This sreen with Optibrite treatment costs something rount 160 dollars. Waaaay too much money for me.

That is, until I happened to browse my favourite used equipment selling web where one guy was selling his Katzeye+Optibrite for less than half of this price! I immediately called him to a) make sure he doesn't sell it to anyone else. b) make sure it isn't a joke. It wasn't...the guy sold his Pentax because he got a great offer for the fullframe Nikon D700. Poor bloke didn't realize Nikon doesn't make many decent-priced FF lenses and really misses the Pentax made pancake prime lenses. That said, he still had the focusing screen which I bought from him today. He was even so kind to install it for me to try. And people, I can tell you it makes a world of difference.

First of all, I verified what I suspected for a long time, that is Auto Focus can sometimes be a little bit off without me noticing. This screen allows me to double-check the Auto focus! And second, I was finally able to see that the Pentacon i not a soft lens at all! However, the pics I made there were just for a test and I have yet to make some pictures decent enough to post here, so that you can see on your own.

Well, as a conclusion....being inspired by the great success with the focusing screen I now almost exclusively use the manual focus because for me it suddenly became quicker, more accurate and even intuitive, unlike the Auto Focus, plus I can now buy any manual lens without fear of being unable to focus it properly.

Som to celebrate my newly acquired focusing ability, I bought the Pentax SMC M 28/2.8 lens which sorted the problem of lacking wide-angles that I mentioned before. (although, I know, it became something like 42 mm on my K20D).


Expect some images when I have more time and the weather gets better.





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