Well this might work with some people. However, if your colleague was stupid enough to try that with anyone who knows anything, he'd be busted very quickly.

That said, I think maybe your analogy is a good one, and it wouldn't surprise me if Pentax employ a similar tactic - assume that all the punters are morons (because statistically, that's quite sensible), and fob them off with any old crap if they complain. If they persist, grind them down with delays and non-answers; most of them will eventually go away (since the keener they are, the less they'll want to send their camera in to be fixed).

If it wasn't for forums like this one, no one would ever get anywhere.

I'm sure this is true.

Far be it from me to fan such flames, but I have to confess to being quite concerned by the amount of anecdotal (and yes, hence unreliable) evidence suggesting at the very least that the QC on this lens is variable.

I've read several accounts elsewhere of people that have bought one, found it poor (uneven focus, typically), exchanged t for another, found it the same, exchanged it again, and then found it excellent.

They may of course have been suffering from the old problem behind the viewfinder rather than in front of it, but the weight of such experiences does make me wonder.

It's an expensive lens with a '*' in the name. They should be unremittingly excellent, shouldn't they?

A return to form, methinks

I think the last one is the weakest, since there's not a great deal to keep the attention as I look from one side of the frame to the other.

But I really like the others. If I had to be picky, I'd have liked a touch more foreground in the 3rd one, since the tip of the reflection looks cut off until you look closely. I know it's not, but a bit more foreground would make the symmetry more pleasing - at least to my eye.

How do you get the exposure of the snow so good?

I'm not at all sure what you intended with this picture. I've seen lots like it (I've even taken some like it, although not recently, and mine were even less remarkable, as I recall).

It's nice enough as far as it goes, but there's nothing about it that really grabs me. Exposure looks good, hard to tell how sharp it is at that size...

... nice, but not really in the same league as others from you.

The trouble with photos like this, and I have hundreds of my own from the Lake District to prove it, is that they evoke your memory of being there, but they don't recreate the same feeling in someone that wasn't there.

It takes an altogether superior skill, which I have not yet acquired, to be able to do the latter. You have, I think, judging by the best of your other work posted here, but this doesn't exemplify it.. sorry.

Edit: part of it is the way the 2D capture doesn't really do the scene justice. You stand there looking at it, and you have the smell and the sound of it - as well as the beauty of the actual thing, and its 3D impact. And then the picture simply doesn't capture what you saw. I haven't worked this out yet, but something else has to happen to get that feeling in a photo. It's obviously in the composition, but I'm not at all sure how to translate the one to the other.

Grey is much better

Hope you enjoy it - I'm sure you will.

You're most welcome. I'm amazed they're not more common, actually. I suppose there'll be some applications where rotating in the constant plane that you get with conventional heads is important - panoramas maybe - but for general purpose 'frame, then shoot' applications, it's so much more convenient.

I hope the build quality is as good now as it was 15-20 years ago. If it is, I'm sure you'll really like it.

Let us know how you get on with it.

Hope this picture makes it clearer...




'A' is the lock release that lets you take the QR plate off the head.

'B' is the lock that stops the QR plate rotating relative to the head.

The risk of the camera falling off is if 'A' is not engaged properly.

As I say, however, it's extremely easy to make sure it is, and only if you're a muppet like me are you likely to have any problems.

Sorry, I hadn't really been following this thread, just noticed this.

I've been using one of these for many years (at least 15 - longer probably). It was £50 when I bought it, and it seemed very expensive at the time, but it's lasted brilliantly.

I think it's fantastic. It grips its ball as well now as it did when it was new, and it's very easy to use. The quick release isn't too intrusive when you're using the camera off the tripod.

It's a standard attachment - I bought a trekking pole recently which doubles as a monopod, and the AF2100 screws straight on.

I'd never go back to an ordinary pan/tilt head now - although I still have the original that came off the tripod, I've never used it since.

Edit: One thing to bear in mind - very, very important.

Locking the camera (with QR plate attached) on to the head is a two-stage process. You have to offer it up, oriented correctly, and then rotate a bit till it clicks. This is what locks the camera on to the head.

Then move the locking lever on the grip down. This stops the camera on its quick release plate from rotating relative to the rest of the head.

Do not confuse these functions.

Once (but only once), I did. I tried to be a bit too quick, pulled the lever on the grip down before the lock was properly engaged.

Fortunately I was close enough (just - imagine a slip fielder) to catch the camera as it fell off.

It's not a problem at all - just make sure you hear the first click when you attach the camera and it then can't fall off.

I've been thinking of getting one of these for a long time - I have several thousand negs to digitise from my film days.

Since I don't have the prints, I need to scan them even to see what I have - so ideally I'd want a reasonably simple workflow with as little intervention as possible for the first pass.

Please could you elaborate a bit on your experiences with it?

I hope it focuses better than slide projectors used to