Quite.

And - as if the amount of noise is even constant from shot to shot - it's heavily dependent on the exposure.

I've noticed that PC magazines tend to be rubbish at camera reviews. For instance, I've mostly found PC Pro are pretty reliable for computer reviews, but noticed that they talk a lot of complete crap when it comes to cameras, especially dSLRs.

So not entirely surprising that PCMag would trot out a lot of ill-informed cobblers.

Well it is, really, I think. A dedicated button would be a lot better.

Not entirely sure they'd appreciate your visit.

Thermistor (or temperature, I guess).

It allows monitoring of the temperature of the battery during charging.

...and when you do, you'll probably be disappointed with the results, or find that there's something wrong with the best one that you could have fixed straightaway if only you'd seen it then and there

I can imagine that if you have the time and the space to develop and print yourself, it can be an enjoyable experience, but otherwise, meh!

I should probably give my ME Super to someone that would use it...

Possibly not, but as forums go, it's a very expensive way of doing it. It's proprietary software, with a development team behind it. I'm not for a moment knocking them, since they're generally very helpful. But Magezine presumably do it this way because it suits their business.

On the other hand, I know exactly how much it costs to run a dedicated server, with plenty of disk space, and tons of available bandwidth, and it isn't all that much.

Mine (well, my company's) costs about 1500 quid a year to run it and its backup. The hardware cost of each server was about 800 quid. We pay extra for software of various kinds, but PHPBB and vBulletin both run on MySQL which is free.

The only issue would be with the gallery images. I'm not sure how much space they take up, but if it's of the order of a few TB, it wouldn't be that big a deal.

So given that the moderators work unpaid, as I understand it, I don't think the forum itself needs to be all that expensive, and plenty of other such, run perfectly well on donations.

So I take the point about public-spiritedness being an incentive to subscribe, but it's their choice to run it the way they do.

And it's not as if paying for it - or part of it - gets us any influence of any kind. A lot of the stuff in the Forum T&Cs stem directly from the fact that it's a business, with specific business interests behind it - that don't necessarily coincide with the sort of things that the community likes to talk about sometimes.

I will not be renewing. I had a lens serviced by Johnsons. They quoted me £100 plus VAT over the phone, which I stupidly failed to get in writing.

Then I joined PUP, sent in the lens on their proper form with my membership number, and guess what they quoted?

Yes, £120 including VAT, and the discount. There were no parts required - it was just an AF adjustment.

Obviously, without having sent the lens in and got a written quote from them *before* quoting them my membership number (which following their procedures in fact precludes), I haven't a leg to stand on.

My bad, but I still feel conned.

The additional content isn't enough for me to feel it's worth paying for, I'm afraid.

My only Sigmas are a 10-20 (earlier version) and a recent 50-500.

I'd say the colours render a little cooler on both of them than on my Pentax lenses.

It's not a huge effect, and I do find it surprising that it's even noticeable. The lenses are supposed to be transparent, after all

You mentioned SRS in an earlier post, so we already know where you got it!!

However, SRS has a fantastic reputation here for excellent service. You can be 100% sure they will not have ripped you off in any way.

And if they did make a mistake, you'll find them excellent at sorting it out.

I've dealt with them for years, as have many here, and they are superb. I wouldn't buy camera gear from anywhere else except in very unusual circumstances.

I bought my K-5 and several of my lenses from them. There have been a couple of issues, but the service when they sorted them out was excellent.

Be fully confident in them - ask for Chris at the Watford branch in person if necessary, he owns it. He's Chris@SRSWatford here.

... to you.