Is there life after aperture block failure?

DirkPentax wrote:

Hello Peter! Saw your 11 month post today and having same aperture block problem with my K50, which began after 18.000 fotos. I still had an Vivitar f/ 2.8 28mm Close Focus Wide Angle with aperture ring and bought a few more autofocus zooms of Pentax and Sigma with aperture rings. In M mode and green button it works great, although the process goes somewhat slower.

Using also my modern AF Pentax lenses without aperture rings!! How did I do it??

I cut a piece of plastic just thick and big enough to fit next to the aperture lever, I refer to the little metal piece a the back of a lens which moves the aperture mechanism, and with a width measured to let the aperture almost open. In my case for night concert rock photos I measured this plastic so to let the aperture on f4 more or less. You can cut a few, more narrower or wider to have your fixed aperture number which you need. For me I cut two. One for almost open and another one to have a fixed f8 number. Important is that the piece of plastic has some fexibility and stays firmly stuck. That's for not falling out into the mirrir compartment.
I use this already half a year and shot a few thousends of pictures with this 'invention' so it works great. To use with the green button.
Hope this will help a lot of people with same problems.

Dirk.

Hi Dirk

it's an ingenious solution!  Thank-you - I may give it a try, but for the moment my K50 is working reasonably well using the battery insert and AA batteries.  I usually get a few dark exposures at the start of a 'session' but after that it works nicely.  My only complaint with it is that getting the battery insert into the camera is a bit of a pain!