Glen Quaich

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A funny thing has happened. Since buying a Nikon D700 I've hardly used my K10D but I've been giving the old and stupidly-named *ist DL that I picked up off Ebay for not a lot an occasional outing. The reason for this is that tests have shown that the K10D and the 21mm DA I have are not a good pairing. I may have mentioned it in an earlier post but the K10D does not focus at all well with the lens.

I checked this out in debug mode after realising that the 21 wasn't as sharp as I felt it should be at wider apertures. It turns out it's off by a mile. It needs an adjustment of around plus 120 to focus accurately. If I make the necessary adjustment, then the K10D is off for my other lenses. That means I can't travel light with just the camera, 21 and 70 DAs. On the other hand, the 21 is fine with the DL.

So that's why, if I can't be bothered lugging the D700 around, then I pick up the DL, 21 and 70, all of which fits into one of the holster-type camera bags. Whichever lens I'm not using goes in its little leather pouch at the bottom of the case and the camera and active lens sit on top. A couple of SD cards and a spare battery go in a side pocket. It's a light and quite versatile outfit that is capable of tackling most of the subjects I like.

I had it with me when we had a family lunch at a hotel in the Perthshire town of Crieff. On the way back, I took a detour and drove a little way into Glen Quaich. The weather was pretty appalling - "atmospheric" would be putting it charitably - and the clouds were so low that you could jump up and grab a handful.

It was, however, quite nice weather if you like moody black and white photography so I stopped the car a couple of times and got the pics above. I also got quite wet in the process from the drizzly rain. The top and bottom images were taken with the 70mm and the middle with the 21mm. The sign in that photograph, in case it's not quite readable, says "Passing Place".

So where does that leave the K10D? Good question! It might be possible to have Pentax fix the focus issue but I don't think I'd use it enough to justify the likely cost of that move. My 16-45 DA is also out of commission just now following an accident involving my younger son and a bottle of fizzy mineral water which has left the aperture blades a bit sticky and some residue on the inside surfaces of the lens elements. However, I might still get the 21mm focusing accurately in debug mode and just use the K10D with that lens and possibly the 50mm f1.7 and 135mm f3.5 "M" lenses. That would give me a bit more range than the DL outfit and would still be a lot lighter than the D700 gear!