How on earth does Face Detection work anyway, and why do people want it?

I'm guessing that it's some sort of adaptive AF that locks onto faces and uses them as the focus points, but I've always coped fine by just going for about f8 and standing far enough back!

Mind you, in my limited experience of using a DSLR at parties you generally have people asking "have you taken it yet?" as I hardly ever use flash. I'd rather use a faster lens and no flash as it avoids red eye and doesn't play havoc with reflective surfaces.

Weirdly I find that a 28mm prime will deal with most "walkabout" situations pretty well. A decent one is sharp enough that you can crop images in the same manner as that horrible digital zoom business on a compact, but with much nicer results!

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. When you take the crop factor into account the field of view is roughly the same as a 42mm lens on film, slightly wider than the classic 50mm but pretty close.

A 50mm prime is handier than you might think for landscapes as it allows you to crop out foreground clutter like ugly fences between the road and the rest of the scenery. You can then stitch images together to get a wider field of view.

The kit 18-55mm is cheap but not nasty IMO, my only criticism of it is the physical size of the lens and that's only compared to the tiny older primes.

You can replace the light seals for about £7, it isn't hard to do. However, if the old mirror bumper foam (the foam strip along the edge of the focusing screen nearest the front of the camera) has managed to get onto the focusing screen then the screen is almost impossible to clean.

I have always been slightly puzzled by the picture modes on DSLRs. We have Program, so why on earth would people want anything else?

On the other hand, if it encourages just a few people to buy a DSLR rather than a bridge camera (and thereby pushes Pentax sales up) then is it any bad thing? I bet most of the ME Supers now turning up on ebay were bought by people who just wanted a high-quality easy to use camera rather than having any creative or "serious" aims.

Hmm, I might just leave it then as I seldom use the self timer anyway!

My self timer would run until it reached the point at which it was supposed to catch the second lever and begin pulling it back to the start position, at which point it would come to a halt. I cured that with a drop of lighter fuel but now the second lever isn't playing.

Might try more lighter fuel and see if that cures it. The camera is pretty tidy apart from that so I'm not inclined to fiddle, although I've had to have the top plate off to fix the aperture indicator window (bent mirror) and I'll be fitting new light seals at some point.

I tend to put a roll of B&W through old cameras first, as I can process that at home. My MX is getting a roll of colour slide next though, having determined that it works perfectly.

Just wondering if anyone else has had this problem and, if so, how they fixed it?

The K series self timers use two levers, as opposed to the single one on the M series. You pull one down to wind the clockwork then move another smaller plastic lever to set it going. However, on my recently-acquired KX the timer runs as soon as you release the first lever rather than waiting until you pull the second. Any ideas?

Can't you find a 3rd party copy of the hood on ebay? I know they're readily available for the 18-55mm and the one I bought seems well made, neither flimsy nor prone to falling off.

The GIMP is worth a look. Free, powerful, and pretty handy once you get the hang of it. It's one of those programs where simply playing with it and resorting to the manual if stuck will teach you a lot, you don't get wizards.

You also need to consider the fact that the kit lenses in some brands are apparently discarded pretty rapidly - they're built down to a price with the idea that people will get hooked on photography and immediately buy a better lens. I hear that the Sony kit zoom is pretty hopeless for one.

Pentax's 18-55mm is one of the best kit zooms available and not far behind the more "premium" zooms they offer in similar focal lengths. This means they simply don't have to make multiple different lenses to satisfy different users, the 18-55mm will satisfy even fairly advanced photographers while there is a model above it for the really serious/wealthy shooters.