Stan,
Sorry to hear about that.
Just two weekends ago, I was photographing an ice-skating performance with
the 60-250, staying at the top level of the bleechers.
Then I hear a having piece falling down, bouncing from the concrete floor.
(Fortunately, nobody was right below me, and my little daughter was about
a foot to the side.)
It was the tripod mount from the lens.
I've never untightened it from the lens. And this time it came off by
itself. (Actually, I've never looked at it, and if asked, from the
memory, I would probably say that it cannot be detached easily, but if
the screw is loosened, the collar can be rotated.)
I thought I was lucky it wasn't while I was holding the lense by the
collar.
Igor
On Sep 9, 2016, at 3:04 PM, Stanley Halpin wrote:
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
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