I've taken the rubber grip off a K 28-50mm, on that it was held on by friction and a thin film of glue. The glue cracked cleanly when I used a fingernail to lever against the edge of the rubber part.

I didn't bother re-gluing it, friction seems to be enough and there's no damage to the rubber.

Flicking through a copy of this today, as I noticed the cover feature "Star Cameras: Our Lab Tests Put The Big Brands Under The Spotlight"

Apparently Pentax aren't a "Big Brand" as those tested were Canon, Nikon, Panasonic, Olympus, Samsung and Sony. They even comment on the "huge range of Nikkor lenses" for the Nikon DSLR. I think the fact that all Pentax DSLRs can use any K mount lens (so anything made since 1975) evidently passed them by.

Does anyone else get fed up with reviewers failing to even notice Pentax? It's especially galling when they feature a Samsung which most likely has a bit of Pentax design/experience in it (the NX10).

It's probably down to colonialism. As Britain colonised India we have a long history of curry, which was reinforced (and improved) when mass immigration began. At least we've stopped putting swede, raisins, and "curry powder" in it now - none of which would be found in proper Indian recipes!

I have found that the M series do not work well ergonomically with bigger lenses. I had the M 35-70mm (a monster which I suspect was developed as part of the K series but released later) on my MX recently and it was just too awkward, making it hard to keep the camera steady while focussing and shooting. Fine on something like a KX where the camera is equally hefty but it just didn't work as well as an M series prime on the MX.

It shouldn't be too hard to sort out, as it's a prime. Generally they seem to work in terms of unscrewing the front element group to access the aperture blades. Use a cotton bud to put a dab of lighter fuel on them then work the aperture a few times, this should clean any oil off. You may also need to give the same treatment to the mechanism under the lens mount (usually held on by a few screws).

As for whether it's worth it, I'd say yes as you already have the lens. Generally 3rd party primes aren't bad, and f2 is faster than the average 28mm.

One thing to check first - you have got the K7 in Manual mode and you are pressing the green button for stop down metering? In Av the camera won't stop the lens down no matter what you set the aperture ring to.

You should be able to pick up a working body for next to nothing if you can't get any life from this one. Have you tried cleaning the battery contacts? The on off switch works by means of copper "fingers" which move on brass tracks as you turn the dial (around the rewind crank), there's also a test position which should produce an audible bleep.

There is a manual adapter for the OM10 which can go for silly money on its own, keep your eyes open. This plugs into the front of the camera next to the lens mount. I've used my OM10 precisely once as it simply isn't as nice as an ME Super or MX.

Is "one example from each of the main four" a valid excuse for me being intrigued by Canon T-80s and their oddball AF lenses?

Nope, it's a 52mm. I've got the cap, just keeping an eye open for the hood.

I recently bought and loaded a roll of Ilford SFX, and now the IR filter has arrived I've got all the stuff to use it. Problem is, the KX has a match needle display which you can't read with the filter in place! Any ideas? Someone out there must have used this stuff extensively and be able to offer advice?

At the moment I'm trying to work out how many stops the filter reduces by, so I can think in terms of setting the exposure normally, focussing, adding the filter and then turning the shutter speed down a bit to compensate. Ilford say to use smaller apertures as a way of compensating for the fact that focus can be different with IR light compared to visible wavelengths, so I can't really compensate by stopping up. Is this workable?

I do have an old handheld light meter which works, but tends to overexpose. Wondering if I could adjust it so that it reads as though it has an IR filter attached all the time, then take settings from that. It was a £5 ebay find which I've never used for anything else.

AFAIK the crinkly caps are on the earliest examples when it was sold as part of the original K series, the later versions with lower case smc were presumably the lens being continued alongside the M series lenses (and would most likely have had the later smooth finish cap).

The hoods for all K series seem tricky to find. I was lucky with the 85-210mm as I found someone in Canada with a couple of them, but I think he sold out about a day after I bought mine. Still keeping my eyes open for the one to fit my K 120mm (also fits the 135mm f3.5, so you'd expect it to be a bit less rare...).

I don't think this is a lone cracker or organised crime. More likely to be national intelligence of some sort, and to be honest the fingers would point at China, the USA or Israel. All three would find it useful to be able to sabotage infrastructure without doing permanent harm, and the fact that Iran's nuclear plant caught it would be very useful to Israel.