I've had a few other Pentax lenses that allow the front element group to screw off. One that comes quickly to mind is the K135/2.5, but there were a couple of others as well. And, just to add a little more info, the front element group of some early Leica lenses also screw off (the 50mm f1.5 Summarit comes to mind).
Usually the front group is secured pretty well, and is very difficult to remove. But once a lens has been "opened up" for a CLA, it's quite possible that the front group will be easier to remove. It's no big deal, and, IMO, allows the user to keep those front elements nice and clean (can't have that stray bit of dust getting in there and disturbing the view). BTW, that brings up an interesting point. There was a huge piece of dust or flotsam of some sort right smack in the middle of my K135. When I removed the front element group to rid the lens of this gargantuan obstruction (surely large enough to degrade the image to Nikon standards <LOL>), I discovered that this big piece of dirt was very, very small ... not even worth the effort to remove. The lens, it seems, magnifies all these little imperfections ... there's a moral in there if you can find it <vbg>. shel Chris Brogden wrote: > Actually, I've never seen a manual focus Pentax 200/4 that *didn't* > unscrew this way. The top half always seems to just unscrew from the > bottom half of the lens. I've seen this both on screwmount and M-series > 200/4's. It's possible that all the ones I've seen (5-10 samples) were > poorly repaired, but I doubt it. I think it's just a design thing. >
