I do think the high street camera trade has taken a big hit from the internet. Jessops could have stood their ground, trained their staff to be camera experts rather than salespeople and used that expertise to fight off the competition. Sadly, they didn't.

There are some very peculiar ideas regarding value of used gear in independent stores too. A brief browse today saw the usual lunatic prices. Now, I'll pay a few quid more to support a local shop/get a warranty/be able to inspect the goods, but I draw the line at paying twice or even four times as much!

Interesting, I've used a Bigma which can't generally lock focus at the 500mm end. I put it down to the combination of f6.3, Welsh winter light, and the K-m presumably using quite an old AF system.

I have been advised to try leaving the lens hood off but couldn't really see how that would improve matters - focus is via the light reflected from the subject and surely the hood makes little difference to that?

To be honest the only reason I'd replace the RS legs and head with anything from a brand name would be if it wore out rapidly due to heavy use. Given how little I use a tripod this isn't likely to happen in the near future, and reports indicate that they're long-lived anyway.

Assuming the lens doesn't have an "A" position on the aperture ring then you will need to go into the camera menu and set it to allow the use of the aperture ring. I'm not sure of the exact route through the menus but if you look carefully for something like "allow aperture ring" or "permit aperture ring" you'll find it.

You can leave this setting alone after changing it, it makes no difference to the way the camera will behave with more recent lenses.

You will then need to dial in the focal length of the lens for the shake reduction, which is a simple case of turning the thumbwheel and pressing OK.

I bought a surprisingly decent budget Marantz amp from Richer Sounds a few years ago, has Tuner/Phono/Cassette/CD/etc inputs and sounds pretty good to me (a lot better than the cheap all-in-one it replaced).

Shortly after I bought a "Cambridge Audio" (who now seem to be a Richer Sounds own brand) CD player. From new it had an annoying hum from the transformer, then it developed what I can only describe as a death rattle! I'll replace it with a Marantz one matching the amp sometime as that way I can use the amp remote to control both.

I use an ancient GEC direct drive turntable with a new cartridge/stylus and a GEC tuner from the same era. You really do hear a lot more detail on vinyl than CD, especially on older albums which were mixed for vinyl.

I don't mourn the loss of cassettes, but a properly handled vinyl record on a properly maintained turntable will knock spots off a CD for pure quality.

I am told that onestop-digital will refund your import duty/VAT if you simply email them a copy of the receipt from Highwaymen and Pirates (sorry, Customs and Excise!) I've never used them however.

I'm not overly fond of the M 28mm f2.8, the f3.5 version is much better. That said, try to use it around f8 and you should get the best results it's capable of. If you line the orange numbers on focus and aperture rings up with the orange diamond shape between them then it turns into a panfocal lens, with everything from infinity to about 3m in focus. Could be handy for video use?

If you can get an A 135mm f2.8 "for cheap" then pounce on it, if you don't like it you can always sell it on for what you paid. Zoom lenses were taking over for telephoto work by the time the A series arrived so primes from that era are unusual.

From what I understand it depends on the type of fungus. I've cleaned a few lenses up without any permanent damage so the chances are good.

I love these huge ancient lenses, have a K 85-210mm f4.5 which isn't especially common, especially mint in original case with original hood. Unfortunately it has a blob of fungus inside which I should probably look into having cleaned.

I would imagine that the three screws he removed simply fix the focus ring (with the distance markings) to the part of the lens which actually moves in and out on the helicoil thread to focus. Providing they didn't get lost it shouldn't be hard to sort out.

The way Aldi were going it would have been. With diesel now pushing £1.33 at Tesco (and £1.39 at the rip-off merchants who own two Texaco garages locally) the veg oil might be cheaper again!