One thing you may or may not know, the grip has to be removed from the camera if you want to use a winder with it. You do this by unscrewing it (use a coin) and then pressing it towards the top of the camera. Don't just pull as it has one of those keyhole-shaped notches above the visible screw which locks over a peg on the camera body.

My ebay screen turned up. It doesn't work (completely out of focus, adding the shim made it worse). Now I have an original screen with two scratches on and a load of fluff. HELP!

Anyone know where I can get a replacement original screen, or alternatively how much Pentax Service would be likely to charge to replace it for me? It literally just needs the old screen removing, maybe a quick clean if any dust has got in, and the new one installing.

I am really, really annoyed about this as I had a bright, clear viewfinder until I fiddled around with a piece of junk made by someone who I suspect had never seen a K-m!

Assuming that you're going as a guest (rather than the official photographer) this will be fine. Exactly the lens I'd have on if I was going to such an event. Well, that or my M 28mm f3.5.

Unless there's a football match planned for the reception I doubt that you'll need a flash - you don't need that high a shutter speed providing people will keep still for a fraction of a second!

It sounds as though your problem is down to not having a high enough shutter speed to freeze the movement. Try putting the camera in shutter priority mode (Tv) and setting a higher ISO, when you adjust the shutter speed the camera will set an aperture to suit (quite possibly the widest aperture the lens can manage) so you can set the fastest shutter speed that the camera will allow. Alternatively if you're not quite ready to manage all the variables yourself then yes, set it to sport mode, but IIRC this doesn't allow you to change the white balance which most likely needs to be on "Tungsten" for indoor shots under artificial light.

When I photographed a stage show a few months ago I used an old 120mm prime at f2.8 and ISO 1600, which meant that the shutter speed was fast enough to shoot handheld providing I didn't try to catch people in mid-movement.

I did think of brass, but I'm not sure how easy it'd be to get a good shine after rubbing the chrome off? I'd be inclined to leave the leather alone for a "Steampunk Industrial" look personally. I'm also unsure whether the ME Super is brass under the chrome?

There is a site that offers replacement leather trim for old Pentaxes in various colours/finishes. Might be a nice finishing touch?

This is giving me dangerous ideas for what I might do if I find a scruffy ME or ME Super. I've rescued one ME from the scrapyard by un-jamming it but as that one appears to have been originally sold in Italy it's a bit too rare to mess about with. If I see a standard one in similar condition it might well be returned to action in a non-standard colour scheme!

There is the old Pentax-M 100mm macro, they seem to go for around the £100 mark. All manual but this isn't likely to be a problem with flowers as they're not prone to flying/running away!

Your cheapest option would be extension tubes and an old manual 50mm prime, you'll get decent results with that for not a lot of spending. You can also use the lens alone to make your DSLR into a very compact package, the Pentax-M (or -A) 50mm f1.7 is seriously sharp and handles nicely too.

Note: Pentax-A lenses have the contacts to allow your camera to set and read the aperture, so they work with all modes albeit with manual focus. The earlier -M lenses don't have this so you'll be using stop-down metering in M mode. For obvious reasons the A series lenses are usually more expensive, but if you can afford the extra then it's worth buying one as it does make life easier when using it as a normal lens.

Somehow doubt it can match the fact that I usually get about six months and 600-700 images from a set of Energiser Lithium AAs in my K-m. With that longevity why would I bother with rechargables?

All DSLRs can be as simple or as complex as you want. Even the Sony full frame models (can't comment on Canikon as I haven't held one) have a green mode.

I have a battered Olympus OM10, bought it on ebay cheap because the last owner thought it was broken (just needed new batteries). A brief play with that showed that it wasn't a patch on the Pentax equivalents of the era, it just felt cheap and flimsy. I also have an old Lubitel 166U that I bought back in the mid 1990s because they were cheap and I wanted a go with medium format, although I haven't used that either for ages.

I am continually tempted by Bronica ETRS/ETRSi gear, which seems to be very cheap by medium format standards. I have seen complete systems (body/lens/viewfinder/back) for around £200 or so. Only snag is that I'd need a new dev tank and medium format negs will not go into my 35mm scanner. Think I might start saving for an LX instead...