Indeed. I'd have to be making a whole lot more than I am before the idea of spending £3.5k on a single body didn't cause a certain amount of, shall we say, clenching

Could you post some links to these other discussions, please?

What press conference is that then?

Welcome, Al.

You can use any K mount lens with the K10D. However, those without an A setting on the aperture ring (which enables the body to set the aperture) will give exposure problems when using stop-down metering.

There's been lots of discussion about this here: check out the following threads as a start:

https://www.pentaxuser.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3867

https://www.pentaxuser.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4222

A search will throw up some others too.

Some seem to have cured the problem without other side effects by using an alternative focusing screen.

A-series lenses and later, from Pentax and other manufacturers, are fine in all modes since the aperture can be set by the body.

Metering wide open is fine even with pre-A lenses, so if you do this and then calculate the exposure yourself for the smaller aperture, it's also fine, albeit not as convenient.

HTH.

Sadly it seemed to speed up just as I was removing the extension tubes...

... goes to me tonight I feel. It is a bottle of "1001 mousse, carpets and upholstery", with spray nozzle.

Picture the scene, if you will. A spider, hanging on a strand of web from the ceiling.

'Aha, where's the camera and extension tubes', is my instinctive reaction.

I put down my glass of wine - on the banister, while I chase the critter up and down the stairs. My first two attempts are rubbish, and he's paying out the line... so I run down the stairs to catch him before he goes back up again.

He pauses in mid-air, I frame my shot... and just before I fire, he's off up the web again. So I turn, and in my haste to beat him to the top of the stairs...

... knock the wine glass, about a third full, off its perch. It falls in slow motion, but still fast enough for its contents to go everywhere.

'Oh dear' I say (or something like that, I don't recall).

Strangely, the photographic moment is past. Some time later, much kitchen towel for blotting used, 1001 sprayed and scrubbing scrubbed, the carpet is now damp, but hopefully clean (1001 is marvellous stuff).

After I'd done cleaning up, I looked for the spider. On the ceiling, out of reach, obviously... and I thought I heard a faint snigger.

His days are numbered...

Can one lens catch it from another?

Or is it something with spores everywhere, and needs the right environment to grow?

I haven't got any lenses with it at the moment, but more have been passing through my hands recently, and I wouldn't want to take any risks.

Should I quarantine new acquisitions for a while?

And here's another - I really like it too.

The only annoying thing is that AFAICS there's only one import location, so if you use it to pull photos from the SD card, it puts them all in the same place.

I use Adobe's photo downloader to do the initial transfer, since it creates a dated subfolder. Then I let Picasa auto-detect the new files and add them to its catalogue.

What exactly was wrong with your photos, Gwyn?

Just wondering, since if the exposure was more than a second or so, the rotation of the Earth would cause significant blurring.

Of the couple of hundred moon shots I've taken, the vast majority of which are complete rubbish, the most consistent problem I found (other than overexposing, which is all too easy) was simply poor focusing. It doesn't take much to ruin it.

I suspect it would depend very much on how good the 2x TC was.

In my limited experience (Sigma 400mm, and 400mm x2), what you gain with the teleconverter in image size you more than lose with the degradation that comes from putting those extra bits of glass in the way.

So even taking into account the greater enlargement required, I've had better results from the bare Sigma 400 than with the TC.

Haven't had a good clear night at full moon or close to it since getting the Pentax SMC-A 400mm F5.6, so can't compare yet.

This is about the best I've done so far:

http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t244/chris5gd/Public/IMGP2385-1b.jpg

Edit: replaced with a link. Sorry, it's a bit wide for here.