I'd rather have a normal LX (approx £250 used), a K7, and a full set of Ltd primes!

I didn't record Top Gear (but should have done). I was out making my own version!

Well, trying to. It's a bit limiting when the only video camera you have handy is a PSP. It copes surprisingly but doesn't handle sudden changes of light or situations where you have a bright sky and dim foreground well. I did strap it to the windscreen and drive a route they occasionally "find" in the magazine and then forget about though.

Nope, never done that one. I did the Baja GB when it last ran (2007) and a few club events in local forests. Great fun!

To be fair, in speed terms I'm used to the KX where the FPS is a case of "how fast can you wind and keep it pointing at the subject?" I don't see the *ist D being that hard to deal with in comparison, although I'm well aware that the write buffer won't be as big as that on a new DSLR. They look like a lot of camera for the money, with a chance of it becoming valuable in the same way as the Spotmatic or the original K bodies in years to come. This may however be a tad incompatible with my intention to use it for situations where I don't want to risk the K-m!

It looks as though a 4GB card would be fine in the *ist D, in case anyone else is wondering (users of another forum reported it working with 16GB). Apparently the RAW files are about 13mb so a 4GB would keep me going for a while.

Get an original KX, they don't mind a bit of moisture (providing you let them dry out thoroughly afterwards!)

I might have to look at that - they've got one bundled with the grip for £179, which is about what you'd pay for the two parts elsewhere and of course you get a sensor clean/6 month warranty from them.

Only snag is that it would wipe out my budget for the next month. Need to think about this carefully, but on the other hand I have every lens I could ever want now...

I love my K-m but I just think the *ist D would make a great second body, I can't afford a new K-x or a used K20D but the *ist D was intended as a professional DSLR when released, so it must be pretty decent. I also like the way that the *ist D has most of its functions on dedicated buttons, as opposed to the K-m where you access them via menus. You can do a lot with a K-m once you've got it set up your way, but it's still a bit tedious having to go through menus to change stuff (as opposed to my old MX where I just turn the dials).

Another query - what is the biggest CF card that the *ist D can handle? I have a 4GB one here which I'd want to use in preference to buying another card, but would the *ist D cope with it?

Yep, it does - I've just been looking at the entries for the various *ist D on the K mount site. The D has two control dials - presumably you can configure these so that one sets aperture and the other shutter speed?

My only complaint with the K-m is that it's a bit annoying use in full manual because of the single dial. I tend to leave it in Program instead and use the dial to shuffle through different combinations of shutter/aperture.

There are a couple on ebay at the moment, will see what they go for and keep my eyes open. They seem to be available around the £100-£150 mark if you wait and watch.

My experiences with my K-m:

Using modern autofocus lenses the exposure is perfect, although I do have trouble with strongly backlit subjects such as aircraft or landscapes with a bright sky. This isn't a fault of the camera.

Using older K mount lenses it's pretty much on the money using stop down metering until you get down to f11 or so, smaller apertures than this cause problems

Using M42 lenses with an official adapter, forget it! The results are always horribly underexposed no matter what settings I use, and for the hassle I'd rather just buy K lenses (the original 1975-77 series being SMC Takumars with K mounts, so same quality but a lot simpler to use).

I'm still having sneaking thoughts of buying an *ist D as a second body to my K-m, however I'm not sure which variant (as in D, DS, DL, etc) is the most desirable? The collector in me says to buy an original *ist D as it was the first Pentax DSLR, it also supports TTL flash and a battery grip is available from a practical viewpoint. That said, which model is felt to be the best of the bunch?

Thanks HG, I did find that link but it seemed to be aimed at someone with rather more electronic skills than I have! I'll probably go for your other suggestion of swapping the parts onto a working but scruffy silver ME Super.

I might also have a look for one of the ME belt clips, as that should fit the ME Super (based on the fact that they can both use the same winders).