I am eight shots from finishing my latest roll of HP5, and I need to take another six photos for my "2010 in pictures" album project before the end of the month.

Just in case anyone's interested, one of my xmas presents was a Polaroid "Pogo" printer. This produces business card-sized photos with self adhesive backing. Shortly after I bought a Moleskine photo album - like their smaller notebooks but with a concertina-style page arrangement that opens out as one long strip. To fill it, I plan to take ten photos per month (two per page) printed with the Pogo and stuck in.

Ah ok - I'll keep an eye out for a cheap one then. From experience most ebay buyers run a mile from lenses with fungus, it doesn't bother me so long as they're fairly simple to strip down and clean.

I nearly bought one of the 75-150mm zooms but as it was a Super Tak rather than an SMC Tak I didn't bother. Nice glassware but I already have the K series 85-210mm f4.5 which fills the role of "ancient monster lens" superbly, as well as being a lot easier to use on digital than you might expect!

Do any other M42 lenses have the aperture coupling as used on the SMC Takumars? Still hunting a cheap lens for my ES II, the light meter isn't terribly reliable in stop down mode so it really needs a lens with that coupling.

That 70-150mm sounds interesting - if it's a genuine Pentax then it must be a Takumar on an M42 mount.

There is a Pentax-M 75-150mm f4 which is a very nice lens. Mine tends to spend a lot of time with my MX as it's a handy size and matches the camera well. Paid £25 for it and they do come up around the £30 mark if you just bide your time and watch the listings.

Just wondering what people would consider a sensible price for the M version - I've been keeping an eye out for one but I've no idea what's a reasonable sum?

That's an absolutely astonishing price!

As Gareth says if you put it on the A setting then it will work with all modes - to do this, turn the aperture ring to the smallest aperture, press the button next to the letter A, then turn the ring until the A lines up with the aperture mark.

Oh it would - the one I saw was some silly person who listed one for £55 BIN and it went within hours!

It doesn't seem inclined to transfer to anything else now, so I think a quick going over with saddle soap was a good idea to finish it off. None of the wax got anywhere near the camera.

I'm not actually sure whether this is real or fake leather - it doesn't smell like leather at least.

I have a K1000 and don't see the appeal either. It just seems to be basic for hair-shirt reasons and misses a lot of useful features. I mean, would a self timer and DOF preview really offend the "make them learn with a basic one" school so much?

I won't be selling it as it was my first SLR, it's also a late 70s example in very good condition so can only go up in value!

What differences were there between the normal versions of these and the "DMD" versions? I'm guessing they added electrical contacts for the DMD version as well as new baseplates to allow mechanical coupling to the winder.

What's the waist level finder like to use on the LX by the way? I'd be quite tempted to buy one purely for the unusual nature of the part.

I quite like the prototypes on there - to be fair we have the "Takumar DA 40mm", it looks like a rebadged version of the plain DA 40mm pancake. I could definitely give the 20mm f1.4 a good home!