Here's another vote for taking your lenses to a repair shop with a good reputation. I have had California Precision Service here in Sacramento (http://www.camrepair.com/) repair two SMC-A lenses. It turns out one was my 200 A* macro, which did not properly interface to the camera when set to the "A" mode. The other was my SMC-A 24-50 F4, which had a goofed-up helical from being dropped.
Both repairs were in the neighborhood of $100. Both lenses came back flawless. California Precision has done right by me. --Mark Mark Cassino wrote: > I had some exposure problems while shooting with the A* 200 macro last > week. Looking at it closely I discovered today that it is not stopping > down properly when the lens is set to the "A" position. basically, it > does not stop down at all at f 4.5 and 5.6, but then begins to stop down > at f 6.7. The aperture blades seem to be about 1 stop off across the > board, and the smallest aperture I can get looks to be f22, not f 32. > When I set the aperture via the aperture ring, it stops down correctly. > > This performance is consistent on the three bodies I have that use both > Aperture Ring and Body control of the aperture setting - the Pz-1p, > *ist-D, and K10D. On other cameras - Mz-S and LX for example, this > issue is moot since the aperture ring is used. > > I tested a couple other "A" lenses and they don't have this problem, so > something is amiss with the 200. > > Last summer the lens (and my *ist-D) took a nasty six foot fall off a > tripod. The grass was thick and the ground was soft, so aside from > having to clean some mud off the filter on the front of the lens, I > thought no harm was done. Now I wonder if the lever that controls the > aperture setting on the camera was knocked out of alignment. > > Checking Pentax's website I see that "most" SMCP-A lenses are no longer > serviced. For folks familiar with the lens mechanism - any thoughts > about how repairable a problem like this might be? > > I looks like I can work around the problem by setting exposure comp to > -1 stop and the aperture one stop smaller than I really want. but then I > can't stop down beyond f22 (not that I want but someday I might) and, > well, I just want it to work properly... > > Any advice would be appreciated... > > - MCC -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
