I think this comes down to the following: All attempts to make it harder to evade the law merely make life more difficult for those who wish to abide by it!

It's the saddening thing with film bodies, especially the mid range ones like the double-digit MZ series. They were once someone's fairly expensive new camera, now they're selling for pennies. The Z1 was aimed at the top amateur/entry level pro market and now they go for £40 with little interest.

Just thought of this (too late to edit previous post): What about a P30T?

They're available for next to nothing, and while they have a fair bit of plastic in them the lens mount is metal and they're well made. I used one for some years and found it a perfectly handy SLR. You have Av, M, and P modes (the latter only with an A-series or later lens), manual focus and film advance. Might be a good one to play with film and see if you take to it, as you won't have spent a fortune if you try a couple of rolls then get bored.

Bear in mind that most of the DA lenses won't work properly on film - the digital sensor is smaller than a 35mm frame so you'll get vignetting.

That said, I would say to look at the ME Super/ME F if you want Av mode. Compact, solid cameras. The ME F is essentially identical but has focus confirmation (it was the first TTL Autofocus camera, although it will only AF with the special 35-70mm lens). Said lens is now sought-after but ME Fs don't seem to go for insane money and will work in manual focus with any K-mount lens.

The MX is very nice to use but doesn't have any automation. This isn't really a problem - you have aperture and shutter speed displayed in the viewfinder along with an LED arrangement for the light meter. Just turn dials until you get a green light with an aperture and shutter speed you're happy with.

You can often get away with using something like a 300mm and then cropping, providing the lens is good enough. I managed to get some very good portraits of a blackbird in the snow earlier this year, although he very obligingly posed in between scooping up the food we put out!

It's a fine lens by most accounts, obviously not autofocus and you will need to decide what focal length to set the shake reduction to.

Look at SFX/SFXn cameras as well. The F 35-70mm was the kit lens with these and you can sometimes find one for sane money that way. I paid £30 for mine attached to an SFX, if you don't want the body you'll probably get a few quid from selling it on.

Portrait lenses really depend on how much of the subject you want to capture and how close you want to get. A 120mm is good for head and shoulders shots from about 3-4m away.

Landscapes, the K or M 28mm f3.5. The K version is predictably harder to find, the M is a close second by the sounds of it but it's still light years ahead of the f2.8 versions. The only thing I could replace mine with would be a DA 21mm Ltd. It's one of those lenses where you can compensate for lack of focal length (say if you see something interesting and don't have time to change lenses) by cropping and enlarging with little loss of sharpness.

That is odd. I don't find A series lenses behave any differently to the later autofocus ones on mine, the metering is spot on in "A". I'm beginning to suspect that Pentax's metering technology has evolved in such a way as to make M42 lenses less usable but K and M lenses more usable, as the K-m is a later design than the other bodies mentioned?

I might leave it then. I replaced the cartridge on my turntable shortly after buying it, as I couldn't find a source for a new stylus to fit the original one. It isn't a particularly expensive one but it balances well enough (the counterweight is adjustable) and sounds decent.

I can only assume that they do well from other wheeler-dealer types who like haggling but aren't really too sure of how much things should cost. The puzzling part for me is how on earth TCR businesses of any sort survive - how on earth do you manage cashflow if your profit margin depends entirely on whether you like the customer/whether they catch you in a good mood and negotiate the price down?

Hamleys are infamous for stocking Hornby trains at above RRP, they still sell as their target market is rich enough not to care that they could find it elsewhere for less. The price differences are meaningless to someone owning a £1.4m house...