I bought a K10D about ten days ago and found that if I leave it plugged into the USB port on the computer the battery discharges completely in about an hour or so.

Is this normal?

Other than that a charge seems to last several hundred shots, despite a lot of LCD and flash use, and with anti-shake left on most of the time. Don't know exactly how many shots a charge lasts yet, since I've left it connected to the USB port twice now... Doh!

Well as I said, I went into Jessops for my K10D and the guy was very complimentary about it. I didn't give him the chance to 'advise' me so it's not really a comparable situation - but he was very positive about it, with not a hint of C/N bias. I took an M-series lens in with me to check it worked Ok, and the guy was very helpful.

As it happens, I've bought most of my Pentax kit from Jessops over the years. The Super A came from a local shop, but the ME Super, and all the lenses, and now the K10D, have all come from Jessops (second hand apart from the K10D - I don't know if that makes a difference), and they've always been very positive about Pentax.

We should probably be careful before trashing a whole chain, although I agree the anecdotal evidence is getting stronger.

Has this not always been true? Every camera store I've ever seen seems to have more C/N stock than anything else - not surprisingly, I guess, given their relative market share.

It's obviously in any store's interests to be in a position to sell more gear. So if they stock C & N but not P lenses, then they could take the short term view that they'll make more money selling the stock they normally carry, and discouraging people from going elsewhere for the stock that they don't.

It's a shame, but I expect it happens all the time.

I'm just glad I happened to have a load of old Pentax-fit lenses, which made the choice of model a no-brainer when the time finally came for me to go digital.

I bought my K10D in Jessops in Kingston, and the guy in there that took my order was very complimentary about it.

He was in the middle of a training course on it apparently.

Strewth. It would have to be a pretty damn funny shape to hit the menu button with your nose... while looking through the 'finder with your left eye.

Is it really a problem?

I'm left-eyed too, and it could occasionally be a little awkward in the good old days with my Super-A and ME-Super. Trying to wind on manually while still looking through the viewfinder was completely impossible.

But the motor-wind fixed that, and of course there's no winding issue with the digitals.

I wipe the LCD from time to time, but it's not an issue for me apart from that.

The last new SLR I bought prior to the K10D was a Super A, in the mid 80s. AFAIR, the situation was exactly the same then. C/N in the ascendant, P with the little guys.

If nothing's changed in the last 20 years, it's hard to believe it ever will.

I suppose the Hoya takeover might change things, but of the people that would go into a camera shop and buy C/N just on the word of the sales guy, who's heard of Hoya?

Just out of curiosity, can you go ultra-ultra wide with bigger format still than 35mm, by the same token?

Why, what was on?

Did a London group ever happen?