Good point, well made.

I'd be interested to see how the two stack up. I'd certainly prefer to see the cost of physical printing and distribution of the manual redirected to the camera development.

But not to being able to read the thing in the camera. I have a perfectly good computer for that, and I can print out the bits I really need if I want to. Or indeed to optimising an already good UI. (I'd rather they added something to the firmware that would let me lock the mirror up properly. But the wishlist is another thread.)

Well as I say, I think that's an unreasonable stance to take. It's a great aspiration, but ease of use has to be paid for. It's hard, and expensive to build a UI that is so intuitive that absolutely nothing ever has to be looked up - and the job gets harder, not easier, as the level of sophistication goes up. Especially since what is obvious and intuitive to one person is not so to another.

I'd rather have a slightly less good UI (and the K10D is pretty good, I reckon) than have to pay a lot more, or wait a lot longer.

I'd also rather not have to pay for the additional software that would have to either be written or licensed, and included in the firmware, with the risk of more bugs, which would allow you to read something like a PDF directly in the camera.

Especially with only a tiny screen to view it on. There's already quite a bit of explanatory help text with most of the options in the menus which is a pretty good half-way house.

If I want to read the manual it's either on the computer or in the bathroom.

Clearly, you don't.

I'm sorry, but this is nonsense. I'm all for making hardware and software as easy to use as possible, but to expect everyone to be able to learn every nuance of a complex product such as a dSLR without looking anything up is unreasonable in the extreme.

If people could be bothered to lift a finger and look something up in the manual (and as manuals go, the K10D one isn't bad) as a first instinct, it would be a lot better than exploiting the helpfulness of people here.

There's a huge difference between "having trouble with X, don't understand the manual on page Y, have tried 'a', 'b' and 'c' and am still stuck", and "I've just bought a K10D and I can't do X".

Yep.

http://www.pentaximaging.com/files/product/K100D%20Manual.pdf

Welcome!!

Sorry, I should have said, "SRS excepted".

I knew that really

People: do not publicise what Chris, top man that he is, has just said. We want him to stay in business!!!!

Not to knock Dan's enthusiasm at all, but in view of the price rise, I find myself wondering if any retailers look at comments like this and think, "Hmm, if that's what they think...".

I must admit, I was thinking about a second body at £399. The urge has left me now, a little. I expect those folk trying to sell their K10Ds on eBay will be a bit happier though.

The thing about a lens, especially a MF one, is that if it's Ok on delivery it's very likely to stay that way. Failures, although they happen, are rare, or so I imagine.

Whereas with all the electronics, switches and shutter-related moving parts in the body itself, I feel a lot more inclined to have a warranty, even though failures in the body aren't exactly common.

This is just a gut feel, of course - not based on any evidence (in fact, the only photo equipment failure I've ever had has been a lens, not a body).

Photoshop applied to the real world... "Allows you to just remove annoying people".

Hundreds of uses... I'd pay a lot of money for that.

Funny thing though, this imagery lark. I can see that the first version of this pic is more dramatic, but I don't like it as much as the later one, which looks a bit less manic.

I used to like Konica film, because it enhanced the greens, and gave the same impact in a 6x4 print that you could get by looking at the real thing.

My brother (even more of a reality purist than I am, if you can even imagine that) used to tell me what a pleb I was for liking that.

But these days, I'm liking authenticity more and more. Funny thing, subjectivity.

Sure. I was never claiming it wasn't taken using flash. It was just a snap - the couple had just announced their engagement IIRC.

But the orbs did freak me out, and I did worry that there was something wrong with the camera.

Thanks for the reassurance amoringello. Dust hadn't occurred to me at all.

Looking forward to seeing the alchemist's example, sorry to hijack the thread.