In my recent listing of items soon to be up for sale, I made a passing comment about the 70-200.
The (Tamron?) Pentax DFA HD 70-200/2.8 is a big hefty lens that balances well on the K-1 body + grip. It has a detachable tripod mount. It produces wonderful mages. But… The metal bit on the back end of the lens that mates with the K-mount on the body is a thin plate about 1-1.5mm thick. That plate attaches to the back end of the lens via four small screws (just a little larger than the screws that hold the sidepieces on your eyeglasses). Those screws go into a hard plastic (not metal) portion of the lens construction. When one or more of those screws is loose or otherwise weakened, then the lens body will detach from the K-mount plate. Leaving the plate attached to the camera, the other 99% of the lens on the table or floor or ground. You needn’t ask how I know this. I like this lens and the images it produces, I like the versatility of this zoom range, I am not ready to give up on it. We’ll see what the verdict of the repair technician is. But I must say that I am a bit miffed that a 2-month-old $1800 lens should fall apart in the wilds of Alaska with no possible replacement. ( Off the grid, no way to order another or find a rental. Too close to the end off the trip, the timing was off, even if I had somehow smoke-signaled an emergency shout-out to B&H for a replacement with next day delivery, it would still have taken 3-4 days to get to me…) So anyway, for those of you with this lens, be careful. Don’t put undue pressure on the lens. Do use the lens tripod mount in lieu of mounting the body and letting the lens hang off. And watch for symptoms of impending disaster. Reflecting later, I realized that there were signs which I didn’t pay attention to. Specifically, there were times when the in-camera viewfinder display of F-stop etc. behaved as though I had an M-series lens mounted. I.e., no F-stop was displayed. Wiggling the lens a bit would correct the problem, and to the extent that I gave it any thought I figured I had dirty contacts. In retrospect, the mounting plate was probably coming loose and that was causing the display issue. Or maybe I had dirty contacts and this wasn’t symptomatic of an impending failure. I don’t know. I don’t abuse my camera equipment, but I also don’t treat my gear as though it were egg-shell delicate jewelry. It bugs me that I may not be able to trust this lens after it is repaired and I will probably trade up if/when Pentax offers a 70-200 in lieu of what is said to be a rebranded Tamron. stan -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
