Why would I be putting flat batteries in a motor wind anyway? I was putting them in fully charged and they were a tight fit.

I can vouch for the element separation problem, having bought one attached to an MZ-10 as a spares or repair lot. The MZ-10 is fine but the lens has fogging between the rear elements.

On the plus side if I see a tidy one with a scratched front element I have parts!

My advice? Dump the 3rd party older glass.

While modern lenses may be better the gap is a lot wider when compared to generic wearer-of-many-badges lenses than it is when compared to, say, SMC Pentax or Pentax-M lenses.

Definitely keep the Takumar and Pentax lenses, the Takumar may be old but it's now a classic. If you've ever felt the urge to try film then a Spotmatic won't cost you much and the Tak will be perfect for it.

Mind you, I had the same thoughts a month or so ago then decided that rather than buying a K-r I should finally buy that medium format film camera I'd wanted for years, and ended up with a Bronica ETRSi! It cost about the same and has provided a lot more entertainment than an upgrade over my perfectly functional K-m would have done.

I have the Pentax-A 200mm f4 and to be honest the only thing missing is AF. It'll knock spots off a modern 200mm zoom and cropped images from it are almost as sharp as full size ones from my Pentax-F 100-300mm, not bad considering it's 100mm shorter!

There's no reason for Pentax not to offer budget lenses as well as the top of the range models. A lot of "premium" brands also offer entry level products and it does them no harm at all.

We don't need more "Limited" lenses. That price level is well catered for. What we need are more 35/2.4s to tempt people over from other brands. The 35mm makes a lot more sense than the cheap 50mm that CaNikony users can buy as it's a more useful focal length on cropped sensors.

I distinctly remember reading excerpts from an interview with someone high-up at Hoya saying that they wanted to keep Pentax expensive. Sorry, but that is commercial suicide. LGB and Marklin model trains both tried that and effectively went bankrupt due to cheaper competition pulling the market from under them (and indifferent quality control in their cases). For every LX Pentax sold in the '80s there would have been a lot more MV1s and MGs finding buyers, which in turn supported the production of slower sellers.

I do think there's a gap in the market for a sanely priced 200mm f4 or thereabouts - how does £200-£250 sound? Samyang are able to make an excellent 85mm f1.4 for about this much after all.

Pentax appear to have decided that zooms are good enough for those of us not willing or able to stump up £500 or more for a single lens, aside from the 35/2.4 they just don't seem interested in making primes for the serious amateur on a budget.

I'm not convinced Amazon sellers would be daft enough to attempt to fob you off with counterfeits. Thing is, if you're not happy with something you buy there then Amazon reserve the right to take the money back from the seller and refund you. They'd also be very likely to boot the seller from their site for selling counterfeit goods.

I have noticed that rechargeable batteries can be thicker than single use ones for a given battery size. I have an old Jessops motor wind which is fine with single use AAs but something of a trap for rechargeables - they go in fine, then you end up loosening screws to get them out again!

Look up the Slik Mini Pro range, there are assorted versions but all share common parts. Tiny, solid, and not stupidly expensive. I've even put an MX and K 85-210mm zoom on mine without it falling over, not bad with a long lens weighing the best part of a kilo.

I would probably go for the ballhead now rather than the pan head mine came with, if Slik sold the heads separately I'd change it but I think the Red Snapper ballhead on my big tripod might be a bit much for the Slik legs!

Seconded...

I've been told that I use the 35 2.4 most of the time because the rest of my lenses are somehow deficient. Not really, more a case of it just being the right focal length for 99% of the time. Generations of photographers coped with just a 50mm prime on their film camera, my Dad shot twenty-odd years of family holiday slides with one on his K2. I don't recall him ever missing a shot he wanted.

So wait, does the tortoise come with the lens?

It may be wonderful but you could buy a brand new D FA 100mm Macro for somewhere between a third and a half of that price, and I rather suspect the Pentax will be better. These old lenses can be very good but you shouldn't pay more than the cost of a modern equivalent.

It's weird seeing colour footage from the 1940s as your subconscious absorbs the idea that history took place in mono. Now I find myself looking at old photos and wondering what colour that ship was, whether that tanker was a bright colour, etc. I know some early railways had eye-searingly vibrant paintwork, which hasn't passed to us other than in drawings and instructions as the experimenters with colour photography weren't interested in them.