This is going to get me marked as a heretic, but...

I bought a pretty decent set of "sailing binoculars" in Aldi a couple of years ago. I'm not sure of the magnification, but they're supposedly waterproof, apparently float, have a built-in compass and are brilliant with glasses (the latter is my main criteria, I haven't tried dropping them in a lake and don't intend to!) The caps are also attached to the body by rubber strips making them impossible to drop or lose.

They have a thread for a standard tripod adapter which I managed to find on ebay for a few £s, bolted to my old Velbon CX540 they take up station in the living room when the bird feeders go out in autumn.

I'm awaiting delivery of a spoiler for my new car. Decided that it looks a little too harmless for its own good and spotted a Japan-spec part for sale on ebay by a breaker. Painting it will be relatively simple, fitting it will most likely need the services of the local body shop as I've never been entirely confident about drilling accurate holes in metal!

I won't be asking them to paint it too as the bill would be horrific. If I do it myself it'll cost about £30 for paint/glasspaper plus two or three hours work. I quite like that part of the process anyway, refurbished the alloy wheels on my last car which came out well.

I've got a couple of M 80-200mm lenses in the to do pile when I can be bothered.

First one was scruffy but perfectly functional, then developed fungus. So I strip it down, clean it out...and struggle to get it back together without loads of dust or smearing inside!

Second one was in better cosmetic condition but has a very sticky aperture. I've tried lighter fuel but it just won't clean up, and I can't get all the glass out for the dunk-in-soapy-water approach.

To be honest if you want AF and for that FA50 to be handy then look for an SFX/SFXn with the F 35-70mm lens. I'm less than fond of the MZ series as they seem to have a ticking bomb in the form of that notorious drive cog failure (the cog splits, the motor then spins without doing anything). The SF series are big, chunky cameras but I rather like mine.

There is a battery grip for the SFX to allow the use of 4 x AA cells in place of the slightly more specialist single battery they use from the factory. Worth seeking out if you buy one. It will also fit the SFXn AFAIK, but not the SF7.

I would still say to go retro if you want to shoot B&W, it adds to the experience IMO. The MX and KX would be my bodies of choice with the ME Super a close runner up. Get a 28mm f3.5 and 135mm f3.5 (or 75-150mm f4 or 80-200mm f4.5) to go with the 50mm and enjoy using them.

Sad to say I doubt they exist, at least for sensible money and without glass which tends to degrade image quality.

The only adapters I see are for the M42 screw mount lenses, as this mount is small enough to fit inside the K mount and therefore allows an adapter which won't affect the distance from lens to sensor. If the lens is held too far forward you won't get infinity focus, making it a bit useless!

You say that you want to go back to basics, but the bodies which offer the features you want really aren't basic - they tend to be much like a DSLR in handling. I have an MZ-7 which fills all of those but it's just too much like digital to be fun (also the shutter on mine tends to stick open on the first shot after it has rested for a few days).

If you want to go basic look for a good MX or ME Super. I'd expect to find a good working MX with 50mm f1.7 for about £50 or an ME S for £30 or so. If you want to pay less then look for a good P30/P30n/P30T.

There is at least the satisfaction of knowing that they probably won't be able to make the 645D work, and will be completely unable to figure out how to get the images from it in a usable form!

It's interesting seeing the reactions of the "I've got an iphone and I like photography" crowd to DSLRs. Apparently anything without a touch screen and with more than three buttons is complicated? I find the opposite to be true!

I definitely see a difference between bargain and fair price.

A couple of weeks ago I managed to get hold of a grubby MX with 50/1.7, ERC, original strap, also a case/light meter/flashgun for £50 from a Mencap branch which had listed it BIN. I've replaced the light seals and given it a good clean, I'd now classify it as somewhere between excellent and minty. All seems to function as it should, a test roll came back fine. I'd call that a fair price - not a bargain, but a good MX and 50mm are worth that much.

Today I have once again seen those Takumar-A 28-80mm lenses advertised for £35. They're worth about £10 IMO. £35 is into M series prime territory!

Some lenses seem to have dried up almost completely. I haven't seen any M 100/2.8s for a while now, can only assume that people just aren't selling. That notorious ebay seller seemed to be trying to ram the price up by a good £50 over what had been the generally accepted level a year or so ago.

Yep - I mean the bit which projects from the cover plate and clips into the slot in the lens. There's one at both ends but mine holds fine with glue on only one end, which reduced the risk of making a mess of it. Generally one clip is broken anyway, this is why the switch falls off!

The obvious logic on the 645 lens: How much would it be worth after cleaning, and how much will cleaning cost? If cleaning plus lens price is still lower than or the same as the price of a clean example then get it done professionally.



Unfortunately a few other sellers seem to be adopting their business model! I now find myself buying sanely-priced BIN items from dealers and seldom bid on auctions as items just tend to go silly at the end. I managed to bag a K 135/3.5 last week which shot up from £17 to £42 in the final seconds. Unfortunately for the sniper my max bid was £50 (as it was minty with original caps)...