Fair play to Sigma...thats excellent customer service in action and a great result for you. Such a shame that they are reducing their PK compatible line-up, particularly as Pentax have got such big holes in their product offerings at longer than mid-tele.

As others have said, you are better off going straight to the main repairer or a reputable individual with access to Pentax spares otherwise you're in effect paying twice...once to the national repairer (where it will almost certainly be sent to by a third party) and then again to the middle man who handles your repair on your behalf.

The price of repairs on all electronic goods seems excessive...so much for saving the planet by clamping down on the disposable society.

Personally I think if you've spent lets say £500 on a camera or camcorder the manufacturer should be legally obliged to warranty it for 5 years against normal 'wear and tear' and for the type of everyday use it was designed for. We'd all end up with much more reliable and robust equipment that wouldn't become disposable after 2-3 years. Spend £250-£300 and I don't think its unreasonable to expect a minimum of 3 years useful life out of it.

Corporate Mugs eh!

My uncle happens to be a dealer selling Ricoh photocopiers...he seemed to have acquired a few so I liberated one (checked with him first of course). It was looking all forlorn by itself in the cupboard in the staff kitchen area...don't think it had ever been used although another 5 were hard at work. Looks like it should carry a nice brew though.

Apparently Ricoh do a whole range of branded merchandise that the dealers can 'purchase'...times must be tough...used to give em away.

Don't know how much they are...can find out and put in a bulk order if anyone wants one!

What...never said it was a camera

Lol...so true.

Usual site

Apparently a new WG-50 tuff compact and a limited edition Silver K-1 before the end of the year.

Excellent shots Nigel...the sharpness in No. 2 is stunning.

I have to say, using off the camera flash with your setup for macros is not something I would have thought of really...almost more of a reason to consider buying some external flash than for portraits.

cheers

Karlo

Thanks for that info David. I've just accessed their site through their usual PU ad without any apparent problem. As John asks though...wonder what it was that prompted them to take action in the first place?

I would think SRS were owed an explanation out of courtesy.

Update: 11:14

Tried again using my normal routine and same result...no access. However I then tried using a more recent edition of my browser (Opera) and it allows access, so I can only assume that there must be some sort of internal admin 'cut-off' point beyond which the old browser version must have been given its marching orders.

After reading Chris' suggestion about prefixing with https://, I tried this using my older browser version and it works...so as long as I have a 'workround' then it's fine with me.

I do find Bullguard to be quite aggressive sometimes in its protection, however that's the way I like it having experienced multiple attacks in the past.

Thanks for your suggestion Chris and hope its not taken up too much of your time.

regards

Karlo

Update; 23:27

Just checked again and the site is blocked both from my favourites folder and PU Ad.

I've not changed anything on my system or setup...it's never returned this message before regarding SRS.

I'll check in the morning and see whether it is still blocking...if so i'll contact Bullguard and ask them what the problem is.

Thanks to all responders.

Karlo