----- Original Message ----- From: "Tim Bray" Subject: PESOs & gripes: K20D & Tamron 70-210
> To be precise, a Tamron SP, 70-210mm 3.5, and it worked perfectly with > the *ist-D. It's not perhaps the creme de la creme of telephoto > zooms, but it's taken some good pictures for me: > > When I attach it to the K20D, I get this little dialogue asking me to > enter the lens' focal length (!?!?) and then it can't set the f-stop. > > I've always that the Pentax dogma was "your old lenses still work." > So I'm assuming this is a firmware issue that will be fixed. > > Um, in case it's not obvious after all my grousing: I'd say that if > you're thinking about a K20D, hold off a few months. It is asking for focal length information because the lens isn't transmitting that data. If you turn off the shake reduction, that dialogue will go away, since it is asking for the focal length so that it can set up the shake reduction properly. As far as it not being able to set the aperture, (I'm presuming the adapter is an A style, and is actually in the A position) I've had problems in the past with Tamron Adaptalls working fine on one Pentax camera, and then not working on a different one. Try cleaning the contacts on both the lens and camera body and see if that makes a difference. You can also try remounting the Adaptall to the lens, and I found with one particular mount that wiggling the lens a bit after it was mounted would make the thing work. You might also try that lens on a different K20 and see if it plays nice on it. If so, you should be able to exchange the camera body based on flawed performance. So far, I've mounted every one of my A series and beyond lenses to the K20, and it plays nicely with all of them. I don't have any A Series style Tamrons anymore because I found that they just didn't play nice with Pentax all the time, so I turfed them and bought first party glass whenever possible. I did own the lens in question, and found it to be a very good performer on my Nikons, but I sold it somewhat after I went to Pentax and aquired a Tokina 80-200/2.8 which I liked better. William Robb -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
