I had one of these circling my house for most of the day, unfortunately as soon as you get the camera out they twitch a wingtip and rocket away on a thermal! A very distinctive call too once you get to know it.

Well yes...

I've got an old Lubitel 166U here (TLR). The simple solution to avoiding accidentally leaving the lower lens cap on? Both caps are part of one plastic moulding so you can't remove one but not the other!

You can however forget to wind the film on, forget to cock the shutter, wind on too far because you weren't watching the little numbers on the film backing paper as they scrolled past the red-tinted window...

I think what's mostly being hit is the ability to make money by controlling trade. Now anyone can sell their old stuff directly via ebay with transparent auction fees and the guarantee that it'll reach the market value if properly listed. Why would you go via a dealer who will essentially offer you an insultingly low sum when you can make more selling it yourself?

I value service but not to the extent of paying £170 more for a lens!

I am slightly surprised that Leica never developed some form of idiot-proofing where lens caps are concerned. Maybe a simple plunger held down by the cap which locks the shutter?

This may explain why so many people end up embedded in the scenery when it snows.

I tend to switch to the same techniques I was taught for off road driving. Don't use the brakes except on level ground. Don't attempt to change gear while going up or down anything steep, and use momentum wisely. Being able to just select low 1st and let the car take itself down is extremely useful when confronted with slush on a steep slope with an unguarded drop off one side!

I can drive from Llangurig to Rhayader in 5th at legal speeds without using the brakes at all, just by easing off the power and letting engine braking shave off a few mph for the bends. The results? I got over 30MPG from a Discovery 300 TDI and it took me around half an hour, so I wasn't dawdling.

I regularly see cheap Pentax compacts, which surely can't be as bad as something specifically aimed at small children? I nearly bought one a while ago as it was bundled with a waterproof enclosure, which would be good for mad ideas such as strapping it to the car bumper in video mode before fording a river.

I was talking to the owner of a model shop over in Aberystwyth recently who had a similar tale. Apparently his rates were getting to ridiculous levels. Looking around town I saw a lot of empty stores, probably for this very reason. Some of the empty ones still sported the names of chain stores, which had presumably decided that there just wasn't enough profit to keep them there.

Yes there is a supermarket and a small out-of-town shopping centre, but the town centre shops always had different things. I remember it being a relatively thriving place when I was at uni there a few years ago. Normally university towns go quiet out of term time but Aber doesn't - when the students leave it fills with what always appears to be the entire population of Birmingham on holiday!

£100-£150 last time I looked. I'd love one for my collection of M series bodies and lenses as it sounds like a handy pocket telephoto, but I'm not prepared to pay that much for it!

There are a few Pentax FA 28-80mm lenses about which would do the trick, have a look at this. I bought one of those at about the same time as my K-m and for a few weeks it was my only other AF lens. There are sharper lenses about but it was perfectly acceptable for colour rendition and general performance, and you won't find yourself cursing the softness.

Alternatively the new DA 35mm f2.4 is full frame compatible if you fancy buying one...

AFAIK they're the same lens, Pentax simply updated the outer casing. Mine's the black one. It's soft and doesn't reproduce colours particularly well.

You can use other modes with that F 35-70mm on older film bodies, just press the button on the aperture ring and turn it. The lens will then operate like an M series.