I have the 50-135mm and to be honest I find I can crop images taken with it very harshly with little loss of quality. I've taken a shot of a cat from about 5m or so where the engraving on the animal's collar was clearly legible when zoomed in. Shots of a small bird from a similar distance with the lens set to 135mm could be cropped to see individual feathers.

I had a similar dilemma a couple of months ago, but went for the Pentax 50-135mm instead as I reckoned a DA* for only £40 more than the Sigma/Tamron lenses was something of a not-to-be-missed offer.

I'm very happy with the lens, about the only complaint is that the SDM takes its time. It will lock onto a subject in very low light without hunting, but takes a while to actually turn the mechanism.

I did use it at Goodwood FoS, where I found that I needed to prefocus and shoot at around f5.6 or so to get sharp images. The lens is sharp from f2.8 on but greater depth of field helped to get moving subjects properly focussed.

It is of course WR sealed, and I can see myself buying a K20D or K7 when prices come down a bit. K20Ds in particular should start turning up on the used market more frequently as K7s trickle down to backup body status with K5s finding more new owners.

Pentax offered a clip-on "cold shoe" which fits on top of the camera in the normal location, add a PC socket to hotshoe adapter and you could use any Pentax flash. For a period piece though see if you can find a working Super-Lite II, these had a PC lead supplied in a small compartment in the flashgun to connect to non-hotshoe cameras.

That lens will be more sought after than the Pentax-M lenses as it has the Auto aperture setting, which means you can use all exposure modes on digital. I doubt they'll accept an offer much lower than the BIN price as a result. It would also work in Program mode on your P30.

The lack of AF on these lenses isn't much of a problem. I know I tend to leave mine set to infinity and f8, at which point anything at a sensible distance is in focus.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Pentax-Takumar-SMC-f3-5-28mm-WIDE-ANGLE-/360389767030?... has been wrongly listed but the photo is the M series 28mm I was on about, it's seriously sharp. I'd be a bit wary of that particular example as it comes with a hard lens case, which seem prone to keeping damp in and allowing fungus to take hold in my experience.

I doubt I can have broken anything as it has the normal range of movement and I can put my full weight on it without pain now. It's a bit sore when walking but I'm putting that down to pulled muscles. It feels as if I've walked a very long way on that leg but not the other!

Luckily no, given it involved me lying flat on my back and swearing with great enthusiasm for the 5mins or so it took for my leg to stop hurting and for me to stop feeling sick. Wasn't really in a terribly coherent state for a while there!

Photography can be dangerous...

I fell down part of the Claerwen valley today and now my left ankle doesn't work properly. Don't think it's broken or dislocated as I can walk on it and it bends ok, just very sore!

Luckily I had an ME Super in my hand worth about £20 rather than anything more desirable. It seems unaffected. I very nearly took my best MX and am rather glad I didn't.

That's a Pentax-F autofocus lens. It would work on your P30 but AF lenses (this range especially) aren't particularly nice to focus manually as the mechanism needs to be free for the AF motor to cope (as opposed to your 50mm which has a greased screw thread mechanism giving some resistance for smooth, steady movement).

My advice: Get an older MF 28mm prime to complete your kit rather than a 28-80mm. Look up either of the Pentax 28mm f3.5 variants or if you want a single lens then look for the Pentax-M or Pentax-A 35-70mm. The M version is slightly faster but will only work in manual mode on your camera (suits me fine, others will vary!) The A version has the contacts and aperture ring setting for program mode.

Bear in mind that older primes are easier to use on digital than zooms as you can just set the focal length for SR and leave it. The 28mm makes a very handy walkabout lens on digital - I used an old SMC Pentax 28mm f3.5 as a standard lens (smaller than the kit zoom) until I had the DA 35mm f2.4.

The flash which probably best fits those requirements is the Pentax AF200T

TTL mode won't work, but you'll get Program Flash if you set the flash to one of the two auto modes and the camera to P. This flash also has variable power in manual mode and takes up very little space.

Bonus: It'll work fully with all the other bodies in your sig!

Get a K or M 120/2.8. Minimum focus is 1.2m and you can use it hand held at 1/125 without shake ruining your photos.

They are, unfortunately, rather hard to find...

I would recommend the M 135mm f3.5 to anyone wanting something faster than the kit lenses on a tight budget. It's tiny, well made, and sharp. You may struggle with moving subjects or sudden changes in brightness however.