Those look good - thanks for the advice chaps!

Did you need an ND to allow you to use a low enough shutter speed? I don't currently own any NDs to fit my big zoom but I've been considering buying a set.

Well, so long as there is some blur I'd be happy. It just looks seriously odd to see a helicopter in mid air with the rotors apparently stationary.

Just wondering what shutter speed I need to be using to avoid the "helicopter with frozen rotors" problem? Also applicable to conventional prop-driven aircraft!

RIAT is still a long way off but I've struggled to find much advice about this. Obviously you don't want too low a speed as with a long lens tracking a moving subject hand held you'll run into shake problems.

I'm in the same camp as Tozza27 there - baseball caps do not suit me!

The bizarre part is that they fitted the contacts for PZ to some of the MZ series, but didn't fully implement the system (IIRC the special functions only work on the Z series bodies?). I just find that a very weird way of working, unless Pentax had plans for SDM much earlier than it actually arrived?

I've got a couple of MZ-50s, one of which came to me dead and was rescued by careful application of superglue to a cracked drive cog. I've yet to put a film through either as to be honest they aren't terribly exciting cameras. If I'm on film I much prefer something like an MX.

I seem to be invisible to 95% of people with or without an ND10, judging by the way they attempt to walk straight through me or elbow me off the pavement into traffic!

If that's the Pentax-F 100-300mm it's not a bad lens at all, here's an uncropped sample from mine. I have reduced the size of the image:

[IMG]http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x21/Kingofthemountains/Landscapes/IMGP1090.jpg[/IMG]

and a cut/paste of the EXIF data:

File Size: 23 kb - 640 x 428

Camera Make: PENTAX

Camera Model: PENTAX K-m

Date/Time: 2010:01:09 13:48:23

Resolution: 640 x 428

Flash Used: No

Focal Length: 300.0mm (35mm equivalent: 450...

Exposure Time: 0.0020 s (1/500)

Aperture: f/8.0

ISO Equiv.: 400

Whitebalance: Auto

Metering Mode: matrix

Exposure: Action program

wow, suddenly I'm glad I didn't go to Focus! just imagine what would have happened to anyone carrying a Pentax bag in that situation![/quote]I think we'd be the ones hiding in the cafe with the Sony and Leica users!

I saw something on the news here a couple of days ago that made me fall about laughing. It was a report on how forensic science degrees have shot up in popularity (presumably as a result of CSI/NCIS/insert other alphabet soup).

They were obviously so keen to let the students play at being in CSI that they even gave them a Nikon!

I got it, which is quite amusing as I registered for the other forum ages ago and haven't been back. Seems a bit heavy on the "rich American Republican with no sense of humour" to me!

Surely putting both of those user groups together is a bit like opening the hatch between the sharks and the killer whales? If you're going to make a brand-specific forum then I don't see how you can lump two major brands together like that, it'll either be chaos or a spectacular row.