I'm leaning towards buying the 165mm leaf shutter lens but I'm wondering how this lens works with the AE prism exposure system. For example, on automatic "A" is the leaf shutter inactive and does the lens use the camera's shutter for automatic exposures or does the leaf shutter somehow tie into the exposure system? Another way to state this question is can the lens be used normally along with the other non leaf shutter lenses or do I always have to use the leaf shutter? Also, does anyone have a comment on differences of image quality between the two 165's. Thank you in advance.

-- Tom Tretheway (tomt@ncal.verio.com), July 31, 2000

Answers

The leaf shutter's speeds do not tie in to the metering system. To meter using the LS you'll need to use an alternate method. You can use the cameras shutter speed dial, and the lens' aperture ring, to meter as you would with any P67 lens, then go into the LS mode by setting the camera's shutter speed at 1/8 (needed for proper sync of the leaf shutter) and set the speed that you metered for on the lens. Or you can use a hand held meter.

This leads to the second answer. Yes, you can use this lens with the focal plane shutter, just like any other P67 lens. To do this, set the lens' shutter speed ring to the "o" position, and make sure the leaf shutter is cocked. Bob

-- Bobby Mahaffey (mahajen@prodigy.net), August 01, 2000.

I forgot to mention, if you buy a used lens and need an owner's manual, Pentax in Colorado will send you a photo copy. I got one for the 90LS and the 165LS. If I remember right they were both free. Bob

-- Bobby Mahaffey (mahajen@prodigy.net), August 01, 2000.

This is a real interesting question. I'm wondering how the 165mm LS works with TTL metering when using flash. Is the X connector on the lens the correct place to connect the flash? I can't see how this would allow the TTL metering to shut down the flash unit. Ideas?

Ken

-- Ken Linton (klinton@lehman.com), January 04, 2002.

The 165 LS won't work with TTL flash metering if you are using the lens' shutter speeds and have the flash plugged into the X sycn on the lens. TTL flash will only work if you use the camera's shutter speeds and forego the shutter speeds of the lens, the same as with any other lens. But somewhere in this forum is a comment by someone who figured out how to tie in the PC cord from the lens to the TTL system. It sounded brilliant, but simple for a good do-it- yourselfer. Bob

-- Bobby Mahaffey (mahajen@prodigy.net), January 04, 2002.