My Dad managed to drop his then-new K2 and M 50mm f1.7 off the top of Pen y Fan back in the late 70s. It went on to photograph around two decades of family holidays and has recently been given a good clean and a new set of light seals to be used again this summer.

The only mark on it is a small dent in the baseplate, not bad considering it bounced around 100m down a rocky hillside in a holdall!

I do think some lenses get the opposite problem. Take the M 40-80mm which is a perfectly acceptable zoom (better than many following it) but never seems hugely sought after as it has some rotten reviews over on the other site. When you actually read them you find people are marking it down because of the twin zoom rings or the way in which the Macro function works, rather than talking about flaws in performance!

I keep adding photos of older gear to the "Official" page, just to see if anyone notices. I get the impression that they have a lot of younger users who've never even seen a 35mm camera let alone something like an original KM or KX.

A K7 is pretty cheap compared to an active user forum with the inherent marketing potential, Pentax got something of a bargain there!

I suppose they could have just sold out but it still seems very dubious to me - why would anyone give K7s away when they go for £700 new?

The best one I've ever managed is a K 55mm f1.8 for £8.50, closely followed by a couple of fungally challenged M 50mm f2s for £5 each which cleaned up nicely with a cotton bud and monitor cleaner.

I wavered over a K1000 for £17 on ebay recently, I already have one but this was obviously the earliest version as it had the little lump to the right of the rewind crank along with the serial number up there. My existing one is a near-mint example of the Hong Kong production I think - it still has an all-metal body but without that lump, no serial number on the top plate and no "made in Japan" stamped into the rear of the top plate.

Also worth bearing in mind that if you buy older glass a filter worthy of the rest of the lens will probably end up costing you at least 50% of the lens purchase price!

I've never scratched a filter or a front element yet, my favoured lenses for walkabout use are neither rare nor expensive so I'll take the risk.

This is what I can't fathom. I regularly see superb photos taken with Takumar lenses here, although my experiences haven't been so successful (my Super Tak 35mm and genuine Pentax adapter wouldn't meter properly on my K-m, it was underexposing all the time in Av mode with the lens set to manual). I know that's a peculiarity of that specific lens rather than a fault with the glass though as the lens is fine when eyeballed and the camera works perfectly with K mount lenses.

I have a K 55mm, 120mm and 85-210mm zoom which are all impeccably behaved on digital, and the K series are pretty much straight copies of the final Takumars with the new mount grafted on. Pentax evidently cared enough about their users to make the extra effort to enable us to use the older glass, which puts super-sharp primes in the hands of anyone willing to learn how to use them.

Umm, pounce on it!

The 50mm f1.7 is a little gem, one of the sharpest available and weighing next to nothing. The A setting will mean that you don't need to use stop-down metering, you can use all the auto or semi-auto modes on your camera. Might be worth asking if they have any other gear?

My local charity shops are useless for camera stuff, never seen anything.

We bought one of those press things to make briquettes for the fire from old paper. It seems to work best if you line the mould with a single sheet then stuff it with either scrunched up paper or shredded paper. A superbly secure means of document disposal - you shred it and burn it!

Ours are great

All recycling is collected kerbside every week, along with the standard black bags. People are given as many recycling bags as they want but there are no wheelie bins and none of this nonsense about only collecting every other week. Paper, plastic and metal are collected, there are bins in town for glass and garden waste. As a result, recycling figures for Powys are excellent.