Well, it's arrived, and it seems to work! About 52 hours total, from order placement to delivery - no complaints there.

The price was $1300 including $100 delivery from New Jersey by UPS; when the man turned up on the doorstep he wanted cash or cheque for £129.33.

At about $1.60 to the pound, $1300 is £812, and 15% of that is £122. Plus a bit for duty - so I seem not to have been ripped off by the courier.

Pleasantly surprised so far!!

Adorama obviously opened up the box, and its internal boxes too, since there was lots of additional Adorama-branded bubble packing inside, as well as more surrounding the Nikon box inside a containing, much larger cardboard box.

Very impressed by their attention - I haven't bought anything from any shop in recent times apart from SRS, where I've been as pleased with the service.

All seems to be in perfect condition, everything present, and having passed a strip of negs through it, all seems fine.

Thank you all for the combined effect of all the crossed fingers on my behalf!!!!

I'll start to make friends with it now, so watch this space.

I was quite interested in joining my local Photographic Society about two years ago, and went along to a few of their meetings as a guest, although naturally contributing the nominal fee for the coffee and biscuits.

I went to a studio session, a Photoshop lecture, and a slide show of a member's pictures set to music.

There were about 15 people at each session, all perfectly friendly, a variety of ages, men and women. No one else at the studio session had a Pentax camera, but there was no trace of brand snobbery. A couple of them were interested in my K10D as a novelty, and one guy was very happy to lend me his infra-red trigger for the studio lights.

I didn't join in the end, mostly because I came to the conclusion that the studio sessions, in which I was the most interested, would ultimately be very frustrating - a couple of five minute sessions with a model once a month with everyone else watching, wasn't my preferred learning environment. And it turned out that there was no members access to the lighting kit other than on the studio nights.

But that was the only reason. All groups of people you don't know look like cliques from the outside, but that's usually an illusion that disappears as soon as you start to get to know them.

Yes, I reckon on about half a terabyte including a backup, so if I get two 1 TB drives, it should be plenty. It'll be a while before I generate that much data, so hopefully the space I have will be Ok for a while.

Yes, that's the plan. Thanks!

You can vote more than once on your own poll?? That's a great idea!

Virtual? Who's the dissenter? There can't be more than one, surely?

They're not entirely undrunk.

You should never rest, George.

Now, lest the bottles remain as undrunk as I currently am, perhaps you'd excuse me...

You'd need a very deep wallet, but the Coolscan 9000 will do it.

I've noticed this effect with the Sigma 10-20 at the wide end, but never with the 18-55, and nothing to do with aperture either.

I'm a bit puzzled about this. The camera focuses with the lens wide open regardless of what aperture the camera is about to set it to when the shutter opens.

Why would a different aperture set in the camera affect whether the AF works?

I'd like a bit more specifics about exactly how the AF doesn't work, in which circumstances, and how repeatably. Otherwise, in the absence of a bit more information, I'd be a teensy bit inclined to put it down to something else - bad light, perhaps, or poor contrast in the subject.

Does the AF not operate, or does it produce an out of focus picture? If the latter, it may be back or front focusing a bit, and it's only visible at the widest aperture.

More information required, methinks.

Feel free to send the 12-24 my way...

I think on this occasion you are, John... with all my manual focus KAs it asks for the focal length on start up.

That's only with SR on, of course. If it's off, it doesn't.

By 'start up', by the way, I mean with the on/off switch. If you restart it with a half-press after it's switched itself off, it remembers and doesn't ask you again.

How do you deal with dust?

I tried a flatbed some time ago, and it was a nightmare. I couldn't keep the negs dust free to save my life... If it had just been a few frames, I'd have been happy to clone the marks away but with the number I need to do, I gave up after a very short while.

Mind you, I didn't have the ICE software at the time. I suspect that's going to be a lifesaver.

Yes, I was thinking about this. As it happens, I'm doing negs, not slides, but the issue is the same.

All the films are numbered, and the strips will just go straight back in the folder after scanning.

I don't suppose the scanner is clever enough to 'see' the negative number along the edge of the strip, is it?

Yes, the beer supply needs to be factored into the cost, too. Hadn't thought of that, although I may opt for malt whisky, of which I have a supply that might possibly be extensive enough (about 30 bottles on the go in two cabinets)