a_halder

<p>Any recommendation for Pentax Lens repair shop(s) at Kolkata in India for getting SLR / DSLR lenses cleaned?</p>

<p>The lens I have to get serviced are Pentax 16-45mm f/4 AF lens and Tamron (Pentax mount) 90mm f/2.8 AF macro lens. A fungus (mild) infestation has started in inner glass surface because of humid weather.</p>

<p>Shop address info would be very helpful.<br>

In addition, if you could share any info from your experience, such as the lens you took there for repair / cleaning, the cost and turn-around time for service they provided?</p>

<p>Thanks</p>

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Andrew Gilchrist:

might have hit... because a crack-line has appeared. Usually bayonet hood comes off by itself (inside the pouch) while on riding on a rough terrain.

John Carter:

So, you did start with a **67mm screw-in rubber-hood** and gradually cutting out 4 corners to successfully remove vignetting? Thanks for your feedback.

In the past, I took the same 'custom-cut' approach for rubber-hooding a 24mm f2.8 (52mm filter thread) lens. Discovered that, the lens needed 52mm-62mm step-up ring in-between lens and rubber-hood; otherwise, the metalic screw-in mount of a 52mm rubber-hood would cause vignetting at extreme corners of the 35mm slides. (It was for 35mm application).

For DSLR and 16-45mm/f4 lens case, I was wondering if I can start with 67mm filter-thread hood itself... looking for examples if anyone has already tried that out.

Given all these custom-fitting exercises, one good side-effect was:

Using the rubber-hood option, the hood could be kept ALWAYS mounted in ready-to-shoot position and still the lens+hood packs well. The same can not be done for a bayonet-mount hood, as it requires reverse-mounting (for compact packing) and re-mounting (while shooting) of the bayonet-hood.

A correction for my post. It should read :

However, with the **default plastic flower-hood** (NOT default rubber-hood, as I mentioned in original post) on the lens, the combo is weak (relatively speaking) at the hood's bayonet-mount.

I am seeking response from pentax-users who tried to use screw-in rubber-hood

on 16-45mm f/4 lens instead of default plastic bayonet-mount flower-hood.

Thanks in advance.

Questions are:

1) Did it vignette on DSLR body if you used 67mm-thread rubberhood?

2) If vigentting happens with 67mm rubber-hood, what minimum-size step-up ring

(e.g 67-to-72mm, 67-to-77mm, etc?) and corresponding wide-angle rubber-hood

would you recommend to check out?

The background of asking this question is:

I was using K100D + 16-45mm (my first-ever purchases in Pentax line-up) in the

field. The body + the un-hooded lens feel solid and the combo packs very well

in belt-pouch system. However, with the default rubber-hood on the lens, the

combo is weak (relatively speaking) at the hood's bayonet-mount.

Recently the default flower-hood cracked at its bayonet mount. When it

happened, the body & the lens having plastic flower-hood reverse-fitted

("flower" facing camera sensor) were being carried securely in belt-pouch; I

was biking on a bike-trail.

Regards.

The lenses you like taking to shooting locations and giving you excellent children (photos) :) One may need to decide that for himself.

28mm may go very well with an 85mm for daily shooting, if there is no third lens below 85mm is to be carried along.

Thanks Jeff. That goes to explain the lower price I was seeing online for the 28/2.8 than the 28/2.5.

Just out of whim I went online for a 28/2.8 and I was wondering if I was paying for a paperweight -- $12 including shipping. It said clean glass and BBAR Multicoating. (I've earlier been a satisfied user of 90/2.8 1:1 with film.)

Can anyone point out the differences between 28mm/f2.8 and 28mm/f2.5 adaptall

mount lenses, other than the max aperture number difference. For example, any

info about which one is more recent version, optically more decent performer?

Searching over the web, I get a hint that there may be more than one versions of

28/2.8 itself, in terms of different type of glass coating. e.g. BBAR, A2(?)

etc.

It seems to me 28mm/f2.5 samples are more commonly available from used lens

dealers. Thanks in advance.

A few links are below:

http://www.dantestella.com/technical/ga645.html

http://www.mcp.com.au/fuji/ga645.htm

http://www.fujirangefinder.com/

- One issue would be to figure out whether the user likes rangefinder type of viewing or not. This means looking into 3-dimentional scene, instead of looking at the projected image in waist-level/prism finder in other cameras. (This had been an issue for me and I eventually preferred WL finders having pop-up magnifiers on other MF camera-type).

- Autofocus operation in GA645 is *slow* compared to 35mms. It can be mitigated to some extent by using using its zone-focusing, where focusing can be preset to a particular distance for maximizing DoF.

Thanks.

The suggestions so far (Olympus E-330 system, Sony R1, and others) have got me thinking on the

alternative options and prioritizing "the must-have vs. the want-to-have" features for my need.

For this light hike-only setups I do not want to eliminate waist-level

viewing ability.

Although it is a subjective matter, while on trail and using tripod, not having to

crouch/stoop down during framing the scene and metering the scene is a blessing.

And, tripods (even CF) going to eye-level is invariably heavier than shorter ones.

My observations for the following (with center-column unextended) tripod-setups for hike

(1) Eye-level tripod and 35mm SLR viewing (Heavier setup to carry)

(2) Chest-level light tripod and waist-level viewing (camera with flip-out LCD)

(3) Chest-level light tripod and 35mm SLR viewing (Needs crouching to frame/compose)

were:

(2) was the most convenient in terms of carrying less weight and composing/framing "at ease".

In strenuous streches of the hikes, while I want my gasping breathing to ease out fast,

the ~15 seconds or up spent on crouching behind the SLR-type finder is not as much

fun experience compared to standing erect and looking at waistlevel framing device.

In past, on some harder trails, crouching for SLR-type viewing on light tripod

became a reason (and sometimes the only reason) for me for not using the light tripod I was carrying then.

Thanks a lot for all the suggestions. More thoughts from you will be much appreciated.

To Richard:

One (very) interesting idea I learn from Dan Mitchell's backpacking equipment

page, is the path/possibility of going wide-angle by using more than one shots

in manual exposure mode. In the field, while on tripod and

shooting landscape, this approach appears not to be

a whole lot of extra work, rather it seems easy to execute.

For me, the technique looks very appealing at this moment: Use/carry

28mm/35mm focal length at the wide-angle side in field, but you go

24mm/wider/much-wider-if-you-care at the back-end.

I need to research on photo-net or elsewhere on the amount and the ease of work needed at the back-end on computer.

Thanks for the link to your brother's page.

I see that was a l-o-n-g post....

So thanks in advance, if you have the patience to read through and give opinions.

Want to have a light (degital medium) setup for hike-only kind of

usage. Will keep the weight below 3 kg.

Weight of the setup is important for me as I had been in situations

where weight of the gear ruined the fun of hike.

Will carry a light-weight tripod + ballhead. Tripod + head + QR

assembly weigh 1-1.2 kg. This item will be always included during hike

as I notice its efficacy over any anti-shake / VR / IS technology in

the camera/lens. The tripod goes ground-level, supports about 1.5-2

kg.

For this setup, I have no requirement to print more than 8x10. No

requirement on shallow DoF pics.

From prior Minolta A200 usage experience (35mm equivalent focal length

is 28-200/2.8-3.5), I find that I am okay with 50 ISO output from 2/3

sensor. Not any higher ISOs.

I want to go wider than 28mm angle of view. As I noticed in 35mm

format, the difference from 24mm and 28mm was compelling enough (for

me) to go for 24mm.

On tele side, I want to go 300mm or higher, if color-fringing does not

appear on 8x10 print.

I much like waistlevel composing ability with flip-out LCD for all of

my shots. (dislike peeking thru EVF).

I do not want take the DSLR route. DSLR with film-SLR quality

viewfinder is out of my budget. Also, I do not want to scan 35mm

slides anymore (tedius). Pictures are for personal use only... no

sell/publish requirement.

Primary subjects are outdoor scenics, and a little close-up (flora).

While I was using 35mm film gear, I wished to get pics of deers etc.

However, with 35mm it never happened that I was carrying my heavy

telephotos on trail.

Currently I use Mamiya TLR, for not-far-away-from-car kind of usage,

slide medium. Also, the Minolta A200 digital that I mentioned

earlier. I currently do not own any 35mm system.

Given that, I am eyeing at:

- A Nikon Coolpix 8400 (24-85/f2.8-4.9 equivalent) or any other

option?

- A Nikon Coolpix 8800 (35-350/f2.8-5 equivalent) or any other option?

And, both fitted with QR-plate and hood...

So, tripod+head + 2 compact digicam with memory-cards + 2 spare

batteries (both take same type battery, memory card).

Anything I am missing / I should consider, from your experience? Any

alternative suggestion?

Apology for a lengthy post.

> are you aware of electronic flash? ...

w/ flash macro was completly forgotten while replying. Thanks that you mentioned it. (my post would be incomplete/misleading otherwise).

> ... One of the nice properties of lenses ...

Learnt something, thanks.

> ... Lester Lefkowitz book The Manual of Closeup Photography ...

Will the "Lester Lefkowitz book The Manual of Closeup Photography" be more helpful than John Shaw's book, considering that one has got a copy of the latter? Pls comment.

wanted to add something here:

for reversing ring, one pre-requisite would be that the camera body needs to support stop-down metering. (e.g. FE can, N80 can not).

Technically, while without stop-down metering it's possible to take a pic, but I'll guess that it'll be painful to set the exposure if in-camera meter does not help.

My finding was that among 24mm (practically useless because of small working distance), 50mm, and 100mm (not so useful because of small magnification), the 50mm is suitable in terms of trading off magnification (1/1.4) and resulting working distance (~4.5 in). Stopping down f/11 to f/16 might be necessary to extract some DoF.

Following link has some useful info regarding the posted question:

http://www.nikonlinks.com/unklbil/macro_adapter.htm

Could not find a conclusive answer to this flash related question

after searching through Nikon flash threads and macro setup threads.

Q1) What I gathered from some other post: SC-17 gets in the way of

popping built-in flash upright on N80 body; meaning that when using

an off-camera TTL flash via SC-17 on N80 body, the simultaneous use of

pop-up flash is out of question.

Can SC-28, which is supposed to be replacement of SC-17 (?), be used

instead?

Q2) If the above is possible, any other potential problems with this

setup (SB-23 via SC-28 and N80 pop-up flash together)?

Some background info:

So far I used natural light only for macros. I am now

interested in trying out my N80 and SB-23 compact flash setup

using a TTL cord (need to buy that) for flash illuminated

hand-held macro shots on slides with ~100mm lens.

My thought is to try the SB-23 as main light source and the pop-up

flash (in standard TTL mode) of N80 as 2ndary for cutting down the

shadows to some extent (I think I may need to cover the popup flash

with a layer of hanky, but am not sure).

I want to experiment and adopt (if successful) this not-so-heavy

hand-held setup.

All your suggestions will be highly appreciated.