We definitely had spring today. Clear blue skies and 18C outside, was even able to stand outside with a camera without losing all feeling in my fingers!

That would have been a good one. I paid £50 for my mint M 135mm f3.5 (turned up in an Olympus 135mm case for some reason!) a few months ago and thought that was about the going rate. It's a nice little lens, really handy size. I like the pull-out lens hoods on the M and A series telephotos, one less thing to lose!

The driving position suits me fine - the only car which fits me better is my 1996 Discovery which has plenty of headroom. I just wish the Saab was AWD as it has far more power than it can put on the road when the turbo kicks while you're on scruffy tarmac...

It's a tricky one. If all the numbers came up I think I'd have both, a full set of FA and DA * and Limited lenses, and the battery grip for the K7.

As we keep getting faulty lottery tickets I'll stick with my K-m and collection of K, M and A series primes for now!

"RARE! Mushroom edition Sigma Pentax 28-80mm zoom"

Judging by how cheaply they sell for I'm wondering if this is actually the best thing you can do with a Sigma 28-80mm...

Scratches will usually cause lens flare and/or weird "artifacts" under specific lighting conditions. I know I have a night shot taken with my battered A 28mm where a streetlight has gained a smudge of light alongside it as a result of the scuffed front element. Should have used a lens hood!

The impression I get from reviews is that the K-x is better at high ISO numbers than the K7, certainly this seems to be a feature of the more recent Pentax DSLR designs as my K-m is quite happy up to ISO 1600 without much noise, although judging by the review I saw it drops off badly when you take the next step up to 3200.

If the lens is high enough quality then you can use a panorama stitching program to deal with a narrower field of view. I know I've had a few decent panoramic shots using my M 28mm f3.5 using this approach. This version of the 28mm has very little distortion, so it works well. Here are a couple of shots from today with this lens, all at f8:

Water over stone at the Caban Coch dam:

[IMG]http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x21/Kingofthemountains/Landscapes/IMGP2090.jpg[/IMG]

and a panoramic shot of the Craig Goch reservoir made up from four images:

[IMG]http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x21/Kingofthemountains/Landscapes/CraigGoch.jpg[/IMG]

It doesn't seem to pose much of a problem. I have an M 50mm that I had to completely strip and rebuild to remove fungus from, as a result of which it gained a noticeable number of dust particles (the sort that are too fine to see, but show up when you shine a light inside). It still takes perfectly good photos!