Some of you might remember the Pentax monocular adapter that enabled you
to use a telephoto lens as a telescope (see here:
http://www.bdimitrov.de/kmp/lenses/adapters/monocular.jpg). Those things
seem to be rather rare and I've heard that used ones are quite expensive
on ebay.
I've regretted not knowing about them at the time and not buying one,
and third-part monocular adapters have not had a very good reputation. I
learned about a new monocular adapter last week from Kenko called
Lens2Scope (see here: http://www.lens2scope.com/). They come in angled
and straight versions and seem to be a bit better than earlier models
and offer better eye-relief for people with glasses. They are also more
expensive at $179. The angled version is supposedly better than the
straight one.
I bought an angled one and have used it for a couple of days. It is
surprizingly bright and sharp. I've mostly used it with a 400mm lens,
giving me 40x magnification.
The only down side I've noticed is that the locking pin seems to be
positioned for other makers' lenses, i.e. on the wrong side. This means
you have to use the adapter with the lens upside down on the tripod, at
least if you want to look down into the eye piece. This isn't really a
problem for lenses with rotating tripod collars, unless you want to
change quickly between using the camera on the lens and using the
adapter. You can also unscrew the mounting plate from the adapter and
scrcew it back on upside-down, but then you lose the ability to lock it
in place. I'm not sure that's important.
Anyhow, I'm looking forward to trying the Lens2Scope adapter on the new
560mm f5.6 lens that Pentax has on the roadmap and will probably
announce at Photokina in September.
Thrainn
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