Stilleto Focuser

[mick pinner]

has anyone used one of these units and if so what impressions do you have.
does anyone in Aus deal in the units. thanks.

[jase (Jason)]

I purchased a STI Stiletto focuser for 35mm film camera (Pentax K1000) around 18 months ago from the US. They're excellent knife edge focusers, but found it a little difficult to initially calibrated. You need to precisely measure the focal plane of the 35mm body and tweak the Stiletto focuser accordingly. I found it frustating as with most old 35mm cameras the film back plate is on a spring to keep sufficient pressure on the film. Any pressure placed on this plate would change the measurement.

I never used it for DSLR or CCD as I personally believe these are best focused with computer software using FWHM calculations or the like. I subsequently sold it as I found I wasn't using it much due to computer assisted focusing.

[Dennis]

Hi Mick

I purchased a unit for my Pentax *ist DS. I have only used it a few times and it appeared to work as described. Later on, I began to notice that even in the viewfinder, the stars were not focused after focusing with the Stiletto. I inspected my set up and discovered some slop in the 3rd party Pentax K adapter (not from Stiletto). After replacing it with a new one from a camera store, everything returned to normal and the stars were back in focus.

It is worth noting that I have only used in on F9 and F10 OTA’s, where there is a larger focus tolerance compared to say F6 systems.

It is an expensive unit and I only purchased it as I was having difficulty getting reliable focus with the Pentax and it was way too tedious to try software assisted focus as DSLR focus does not support the Pentax.

Cheers

Dennis