It's funny, but although this would have been true 8 or 9 months ago, when I was still deeply disappointed with the K10D's stop-down metering issues, it's not so any longer. Sure it would let me use old lenses, but I'm not sure there are many that I'd want badly enough for that to be right at the top of my feature list. Perhaps I'm fortunate in only having a couple of pre-A ones.

There are lots of features I'd want now before the restoration of the KAF mount. Faster low-light AF, proper mirror lock-up, quieter mirror-slap, higher low-noise max ISO, higher dynamic range sensor, in-camera ND grad filter would be cool if it could be coupled to live-view, better in-camera contrast adjustment, spot-metering when using flash....

I'd guess that most of the people that get one of the dSLRS get a kit lens with it. Added to which, a 28-80 is not the useful range it used to be.

So if the increase in lens prices is being driven by the uptake of dSLRs, maybe it's now the other way round, and I'll have to include the body to get rid of the lens.

Does this suggest that a very modest kit that I have to sell (Program A and Pentax A 28-80 (the non-SMC one)) would fetch more sold together than separately?

Although on reflection, the 70-300 range isn't uncommon, so it could be said that a 55-300 is like that, but just a bit shorter, making it very good indeed as a companion to the kit lens if you want to go out with just two lenses.

This isn't surprising.

If you want a superzoom, you want it for the convenience of being able to take only one lens, and 55mm is way too long for that. If you want it very long at the long end, there's the Bigma, and if you want better quality, you probably don't want such a zoom range at all.

So it's neither one thing nor the other.

I think the superzoom requirement is perfectly met by the 18-250.

I didn't imagine that you were for a moment, John.

But I do think you're right - if you feel strongly negative about something, it's going to come out in your photography if you're any good, so feeling negative about a couple - for any reason - isn't going to produce good wedding pictures for the couple.

If I look back over the pictures I've taken that I'm particularly proud of, not that they are all that many, they are without exception where, for whatever reason, I've felt strongly about what's going on.

I guess what I'm saying is that the photographer's feelings must come into it - and they'll be reflected in the results.

Hmm..
I think it's precisely because the photographer's feelings do come into it that I think you're right.

I like the effect. There's a strange dissonance, I find, in looking at black and white pictures with elements of them in colour. The subtler the colour (as in this case) the stronger the dissonance, and hence the stronger the effect.

It's a bit like a colouring book for grown-ups , isn't it.

All this is completely moot these days.

I guess for those still taking pictures with film and digital it prolongs the need for mental agility, but in the year I've now had the K10D I've looked through a 35mm viewfinder perhaps four times, and each time it's made me think, "blimey that's wide".

It's just a question of what you're used to - I simply expect to see what I see now. 18mm is the start of wide, whereas 28 was before.

This can be read two ways!! Perhaps it might have been better phrased:

'Any 50mm lens on your digital camera acts like a 75mm lens would act on your film camera.'

Because, of course, if you're used to the 'digital' angle of view, and you put your 50mm lens on a film camera, it will be acting like a 35mm lens* (well, 33)!

It all seems very complex, but the good news for the OP is that it doesn't take very long (if you're taking pictures mostly with the digital camera), for the brain to completely make the switch to finding the narrower angle of view perfectly normal.

But yes, actual focal length for the SR (thank goodness!!)

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* would act on your digital camera