Small specks of dust are nothing to worry about. The 50mm f1.7 I cleaned fungus out of has rather more dust inside than I'd like (despite using a blower and a soft brush before reassembly) but produces very sharp photos. Providing that it is dust rather than fungus I'd say to leave it alone, fiddling around has the potential to make it worse.

My understanding is the same - colour is a lot less tolerant of temperature than B&W. I can get away with pre-warming the Rondinax tank (stick it in airing cupboard for an hour or so before use) and then using a soil thermometer (only waterproof thermometer I could buy locally) to check the temperature of the water before I mix the chemicals, but I doubt colour would respond well to this approach!

I'm wondering if the bit with "Front" on is removable? Possibly it's for a filter with the little dial being used to rotate things like polarisers and the thumbscrew used to secure the filter holder, like the grip on the old SFX?

Even if they were all equally secure I'd be using Firefox. Mostly as I like the add-ons, plus Internet Exploder doesn't work on Linux. I also don't think it's healthy for the computer world if one company has the dominance that M$ holds.

Long, fast glass still seems to be desirable. Although the only fast telephoto I own is a K 120mm f2.8 (not aware of Pentax having offered any others with similar aperture apart from the * and Limited series?)

Those look like the ones I found - mine have "PK" rather than Pentax on them though. I bought them as a set of one lens cap and one body cap, but can't remember which seller they came from now.

The Spotmatic along with the later K and M series are mostly older than I am, but I still love using my MX. It's just a really sweet-handling camera and I can't see how it's harder to use than a modern one, you just need some basic photographic knowledge. Understand depth of field and you can get good results, providing you have an eye for composition. I'm still keeping an eye open for a cheap SMC Tak 55mm f1.8 for my ES II - needs to be an SMC as the light meter isn't terribly reliable in stop down mode but works fine if you move the aperture coupling by hand.

That said, I don't plan to buy any other M42 lenses - I'd rather have the K series as they're essentially the same but with no need for an adapter to use them on my K-m.

Buy a Spotmatic, a few rolls of Ilford HP5, and a Rondinax dev tank and enjoy using the old hardware. It'll cost you less than a decent used AF lens and you'll have a great time.

Look on ebay from Hong Kong - it appears that they've cloned the genuine Pentax design used on A series lenses and the results are an excellent fit.

Not to mention the fact that at some apertures the stop-down metering is a bit off - in my experience it seems that when you go much below f8 you start having problems. At least, that seems to be the case on most manual lenses.

I would be torn between an M 50mm f1.4 and an M 40mm for my MX. The 40mm might just edge it as it'd be more useful in creating a compact SLR, and it was a popular choice for a standard lens on an MX too. However, at the prices charged I see little chance of my getting one. I draw the line at paying over £50 for a mass produced lens that was available for many years and of which plenty were sold!

I know the feeling!

Some of the photos that I've been happiest with were taken in the first three months of owning my camera when I was still in green mode. Since then I've bought better lenses but I'm producing fewer shots that I'm completely satisfied with. I think this must be the "all my photos are terrible" dip shown in that graph someone posted a while ago...