Is there life after aperture block failure?

Futax wrote:

Futax wrote:

No, it won't stop down correctly if you set it to "A" (which is the equivalent to F22 or whatever as far as your camera is concerned). That would be just the same as using a lens without an aperture ring. Just set the aperture ring to your chosen aperture (which might well be an aperture which maximises sharpness), and in Av mode it will stop down to that aperture (at least with my K-50 it will).

Since the exposure metering is done just before you take the shot, and the camera assumes the aperture is wide open (it knows no different, as the aperture ring doesn't communicate back to the camera), the camera will overexpose unless the aperture is actually set to be wide open.

So you have to use exposure compensation to counteract this. For example, if it's an F4 lens and you set the aperture ring to F8, you will need +2EV compensation.

Give it a try, and report back, because that is how my own K-50 behaves, and I'm assuming it applies to all K-50s. It'll hopefully be of help to a lot of people!:-)

What I am saying is that, with the K-50, you can use Av mode, as long as you fool the camera into getting the exposure correct by using the exposure compensation function.

Again, not correct. You do NOT need to use exposure compensation. There is something wrong with your setup!

I never said anything about painting the "rear element" black! That was a reference to the fact that most (all?) M42 lenses have non-conductive rears. Whereas most K-mount lenses have bare aluminium conductive rears. And the discussion about Av mode above requires lenses with conductive rears.

To do what? The light reaching the mirror/sensor is coming from the glass elements, not lens mount--unless the lens is not mounted properly or some other issue with adapter/mount.

If you don't want to bother with Av mode and exposure compensation, then stick to "M" mode and the green button.

M mode works fine and so does A-priority mode. The only difference is you do not need to press the green button in Av mode.

But you'll probably get inconsistent exposures, with no two lenses behaving identically with a variety of apertures.

Not in my experience! Two identical lenses will perform identically!

Note: my suggested use of Av mode may well not work with other Pentax models, but it does with the K-50 (at least it does with mine).

That I can agree on I don't know what kind of settings you have changed on your camera, but my sincere suggestion is to: 1) reset the camera; 2) change the necessary settings as recommended by PFhere , and; 3) try your manual lenses again. Also check that your manual lens actually changes the aperture when you stop it down. As long as you are using exposure compensation to properly expose an image, something is wrong with your setup! Simple as that!