Using the 135mm f/2.8 as a legacy lens

<p>I have been using my 50mm f/1.4 as a legacy lens on my M43 cameras and thought it would be good if I could use my 135mm f/2.8 as well. However for some reason I found the Auto/Man switch was stuck so I took it to a repair shop where on payment of $69 [ $9 being sales tax or GST here in NZ ] I was told there was a smeer which had been cleaned off and the news to me, despite owning the lens nearly twenty years that there is another pin which needs to be pushed in to let the A/M switch operate. I suppose $69 is not that high for a vital bit of knowledge which I am passing on for free :-)</p>

<p>So I get home and find that OK pressing the pin in permits the switch to work but sadly when you push it back to auto the pin springs up and one is back to starters and would need to remove lens from camera .... urrrgh!</p>

<p>A drop of instant glue while the pin was depressed and it looks like I have solved the problem and a second one arises. When in Manual the M43-M42 adaptor causes the 'other' pin which a Pentax camera normally pushes as it is about to take the photo caused the aperture to be part closed. Setting the adaptor up on my lathe I turned back the 'bottom' flange to the thread which was the offender and now my 135 works like the 50.</p>

<p>I got my first Pentax around 1964 and it has taken me fifty years to learn this useful bit of info :-)</p>

<p>Note ... using the A/M switch makes working with it not as nice as an automatic system but a lot easier than adjusting the iris after finding focus with the lens wide open and the EVF/LCD of the digital camera almost immediately compensates for the different light level and "everything" jumps into focus as you close to f/16 :-)</p>