Can someone explain this?

I've heard it said many times, but I don't understand it.

The out-of-focus-ness of the subject is surely the same on the sensor, with the same lens at the same distance from the camera, regardless of crop, so what needs to be compared with what, for this to be true?

Given the same photosite density, it's about 36M pixel, not 20.

(36x24)/(24x16) = 2.25.

Less than that, obviously, with the bigger, less noisy photosites that presumably they have (had? I don't know what the big sensors are like now).

The attraction for me would be the ability to endlessly increase the ISO without noise - but it would only be any good if the AF got correspondingly better in the increasing darkness.

I'd never go FF without a lottery win - the weight and expense of the long fat lenses would be prohibitive.

As far as bragging rights go, with the revolution in diminutive, yet powerful portable devices of all kinds, is there really any margin in having a big camera any more?

Small is the new large, these days. I think the fact that the K-5 so much more capable, yet both smaller and lighter than the K10D is just brilliant.

Incredibly short. Much shorter than anything else I've seen. About an inch or perhaps a shade more.

Makes AF pretty quick though. Haven't had it on the K-5 yet, but I've always enjoyed it on the K10.

That was my guess, too, but it's wrong

There's no change in focus throw between the extremes of the zoom range.

The closest focusing distance marked on the barrel is 2.1m, with a green line leading to the 'flower' macro icon beyond that. It actually focuses down to about 18 inches or so at both ends of the zoom range.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not at all knocking film, and I completely understand the attraction of a more physical medium.

My dad used to convert the bathroom into a darkroom occasionally when I was very little, and I have faint memories of a magical process, strange smells, and red light.

Of course there's romanticism - I'm really not saying anything at all apart from suggesting what can and can't be inferred from what we see in these pictures.

There was a user called PaulyRichard around these parts about a year ago who used to post very gritty B&W street photography images taken with his K20D.

But if he'd claimed they were shot with film, I bet there's barely a person here who wouldn't have fallen for it.

Most of the time, most of us just can't tell.

I've got one, but never had a manual for it.

Was there one originally?

I've never even imagined an instruction manual for a lens. What would be in it?

Edit...

There's this.

But it doesn't mention the 28-200, AFAICT from a 30s scroll through.

Is it really possible to tell any difference between film and digital, based on what we see here?

They've been exposed, developed, scanned (allegedly at 300 dpi which is clearly nonsense), then edited in Photoshop (we know not how), and then output for the web.

I'm not for a moment criticising the images - they're interesting and make a real impact.

But it's a bit much I think, to draw any real conclusions about film vs digital from these.

Yes, I tried to change lenses recently on a Canon and noticed that. Horrendous. I was being watched by two children who looked somewhat askance at my obvious complete incompetence.

I didn't quite drop them, but it wasn't exactly the quick press with the finger that's there already that I've been used to.

Not at all.

It just made me laugh that someone would buy a £10,000 camera, and then buy a little flash like that for it without researching first.

Talking of research - you do realise that the AF280T is TTL, not P-TTL, so does not work in TTL mode with your K-r?

As has been mentioned, you can use its auto-mode with a given aperture, but it won't talk to the body.

http://www.bdimitrov.de is a great resource for all Pentax bits.

Ah ok. I'm interested since I have a Nikon Coolscan 5000 ED, with which I've been gradually working through my collection of about 10,000 negs from my pre-digital years.

£3 for a roll of 36 is pretty good value actually - do they do it before cutting the roll into strips?

I sincerely hope you mean 3000 dpi !!

The Nikon scans at 4000 dpi. It also generates images that are quite grainy at the pixel level, which was why I was interested in your comment about your 125 ASA film.

I find it's quite easy to remove the grain, if not completely then to a level where at normal enlargements it's more or less invisible.