All K mount lenses will fit on your camera and work to some extent.

The oldest (SMC, SMC M) will work in manual and aperture priority mode, manual focus

SMC A will work in all exposure modes, manual focus

SMC F & FA and FA D will work in all modes, manual and autofocus

SMC FA J don't have an aperture ring and so can only really be used in program or shutter priority modes, auto or manual focus

SMC DA will work as FA J but will vignette (dark corners) at some focal lengths because they are designed for the smaller sensor of the digital cameras

AL just indicates the use of aspherical elements in the lens - it has nothing to do with lens compatibility

Given Pentax use the same Sony chip as Nikon we only have to look at the D200 to have a reasonable guess...

For the sake of completeness - Sigma now make their 10-20 lens in a Pentax mount. Warehouse Express have them on their site. I'm tempted as it is half the price of the 12-24 and 2mm wider.

I've not any personal experience with either device but in general Pentax AF cameras work fine with modern non dedicated flash guns - just set the camera to any shutter speed up to the max flash sync speed (250 on the Z1 I think) and choose your aperture according to the film speed and flash setting and fire away.

I believe there are some issues with (considerably) older electronic flash guns because the voltages are higher and there is apparently a risk of damage to the camera electronics.

Raw on 1 GB - about 90
JPEG on 1 GB - about 300 at highest quality

You don't need the latest firmware to use RAW - just use the quality setting in the shooting menu (the options are 1 2 or 3* or RAW)

If you are going to switch to RAW you may want to get a 3rd party conversion program - the PENTAX one is not very good. I use Capture 1 LE

It is woorth getting the firmware update - it gives the option of continuous AF in the manual and semi automatic modes. It also gives an auto ASA option and an option to use the ML button in manual as a one off Av, Tv or P setting (depending on the option you have chosen in the menu)

A recent review (in PCW) of 3rd party inks showed that some of the ones available for the Canon actualy delivered slightly better quality images than they manufacturers ink (and they were all close anyway), whereas the 3rd party inks for Epson and HP ae not as good. This effectively could make the Canon much cheaper to run.

However the test did not look at the light fastness of the 3rd party inks, so caveat emptor. I've got some to try out but have not switched over yet.

Note the Canon tanks are just tanks, whereas the Epson tanks include the print head, and that is what makes the Epson tanks more expensive.

I use the Canon i950 and am very pleased with it for colour use. It is OK for B&W. Latest incarnation of the top range A4 printer is the Pixma ip8500. It uses the same ink system as the i950 but with 8 ink colours (including black)

Two things

(a) http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Pentax-A-SMC-50mm-Lens-1-1-4_W0QQitemZ7566809414QQcategoryZ4688QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem (for info - I was just browsing)

(b) I was my fault - sorry - I revived an old thread when talking about the 16-45

Circular polarisers filter the polarised light in the same way as linear polarisers (and so still need rotating in the normal way) , but then they 'scramble' the filtered light afterwards so as not to fool autofocus and AE sytems that use half silvered mirrors.

Calling them circular polarisers is a bit confusing and not an acurate description of what they do.

Unfortunately the later 'M' angle finder (which also has a useful 2x magnification option) is quite rare second hand and usually goes for rather more the 30+ quid. The older finder (which fits spotmatics and the K series) is more common but does not fit the later cameras.

I had heard that Olympus angle finders fit Pentax 'M' finders. Can anyone confirm this?

(Just had a pleasant afternoon wandering round a village with MX, 40/2.8 and Delta 400)