Mark, I'd recommend that you stay away from KEH, too. You may remember the trouble I had last year when I bought a non-functioning A* 200 from them - they had no idea what they were talking about, and finally sent the lens to Pentax as the problem was over their heads.
I'd suggest you call Pentax and see if they can still work on it - it may be the exception. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Mark Cassino Sent: Sunday, April 08, 2007 10:15 PM To: Pentax-Discuss Mail List Subject: Problem with A* 200 macro 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 -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Mark Cassino Photography Kalamazoo, Michigan www.markcassino.com - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
