To be honest GE and Streetview would be much more useful to anyone planning an attack than any number of personally taken photos. They wouldn't appear on any CCTV records prior to the attack, and any attempts to watch their communications/transactions wouldn't show it.

You can get a complete turning-by-turning set of photos showing the approaches to anything publicly accessible. I regularly use it to check the precise location of a shop or restaurant before visiting (also handy for checking whether the prices-too-good-to-be-true mail order business is legit) as it also allows you to find parking, indeed the resolution is good enough to read restriction signs!

Get a longer lens and take the shots from a public right of way instead.

It's about time the various "security" people were reined in. They seem to have become rather confused and think they're allowed to be petty little thugs without the checks and balances applied to real Police.

They have no right of arrest or detention beyond a normal citizen's arrest, for which you pretty much need to catch the offender red handed or risk a conviction for false arrest/false imprisonment.

I find myself wondering if the real Police were trying to get the goons out of a hole with the "counter terror" nonsense. If they'd turned up and said "he's done nothing wrong" then the photographer would have perfect grounds for bringing a case against the goons.

I think the 50-135mm tends to be the last lens anyone would sell, I've even seen people change systems for full frame but keep one Pentax body so they could still use this lens. It's that good!

Sadly the M 35/2.8 is notorious for sticky blades. Mine seems to improve if I take it off the camera, set it to f22, then give the aperture lever a good wiggle while gently pressing it in various directions. I assume this must grind the grease out of the way, as after that it's as snappy as any other M lens and seems to work perfectly.

Be a bit wary before spending money on M42 lenses. My K-m doesn't like them and that may well go for other recent bodies too. See if you can borrow a genuine adapter and an M42 lens of some sort to try it out before buying your own.

I have tried Takumar 35mm, 55mm and 135mm, an Industar 50mm pancake and a Helios 58mm (all with a genuine Pentax adapter). They all underexposed horribly regardless of settings used. Yes you could use a hand-held light meter but I'd rather just use native K-mount lenses where stop-down metering is perfect at normal apertures.

I have used vinegar or computer monitor cleaning spray (alcohol-based) in the past, none of the lenses I have thus treated show any signs of a return of the fungus. I tend to dunk a cotton bud in the liquid then polish the fungus away.

Surgical-type gloves help to keep fingerprints off the elements while cleaning and reinstalling them - you can buy big boxes of these and they have numerous uses around the house (refilling grease guns, unblocking sinks, any unpleasant jobs really!)

SMC coatings seem to stand up to fungus pretty well, I know I have a 50mm which was absolutely riddled with it but cleaned up perfectly aside from slightly more dust than my untouched minty example of the same lens.

Same problem you have with everyone really!

A properly set up Ubuntu box is no harder to use than Windows, in many ways it's easier. However, it looks different and apparently this activates a mindset of "can't use this and won't learn how to no matter how many times you explain it" with a certain sort of user! All you need to do is read the menus and use a bit of common sense, it's much simpler than some things which the same people are doubtless quite happy with.

I have more trouble with Windows changing stuff arbitrarily (especially those "personalised menus" and XP's habit of deleting half your desktop icons unless you rummage through the settings to tell it not to).

I have seen opposition to adopting Linux in schools because M$ software is "industry standard"...while the exam syllabus stresses the importance of using proper terms such as word processor instead of brand names like Word! The students are just as likely to encounter a Mac or Linux in the workplace, trapping them on planet Windows does them no favours.

The Pentax lens will probably hold its value better (I know the various Pentax 85mm lenses are pretty sought after, even the non-* versions).

I also don't use f1.4. It's just too difficult to get the focus right hand-held, if you lean ever so slightly forward or back between focussing and taking the photo it throws it out. It also seems to render living things much better than the built world IMO - I've had some excellent results shooting plant life with it, but the DA* is better for anything with harder edges.

Weirdly I would probably get more use from an M 85/2 and my 50-135mm than I do from the Samyang and the zoom. The Samyang is just a bit too big for my tastes on my film bodies, while the M lens doesn't look that much bigger than the K 28/3.5 or 55/1.8.

Incidentally, I hope you dried it out immediately after taking that. The M lenses are not weather sealed and don't tend to respond well to a soaking!

It looks as though that front trim ring does hold it in. I've never had to dismantle one of these but its big brother the 80-200mm f4.5 works that way.

You should be able to get away with not disturbing the infinity setting, which will make life much simpler when you come to rebuild the lens.

I seem to remember reading that 135mm lenses were one of the easiest to make a decent stab at, with almost no complete dogs.

Older lenses do tend to produce cooler colours than current ones. I generally put it down to different coatings, plus I get the impression that photographers then were after a more natural look rather than the currently-fashionable vibrancy.

I have the Makinon 500mm f8 mirror lens, but can't really offer much of a review as it looks to have some sort of tide mark in the rear elements (not sure if it's glue letting go or a grease mark). It's not too bad, but I suspect crops from my 100-300mm or even 50-135mm would be better. On the plus side it was free (given to me by a colleague who found it at the back of their wardrobe after disposing of their other Pentax gear).