I thought the Dutch just tried to get as far as possible on holiday?

Seriously, everywhere you go in mainland Europe you're more or less guaranteed to pass a car with Dutch numberplates. They even make it up here to Wales on a fairly regular basis!

My suspicion is that when NASA finally return to the moon they'll find a family from Rotterdam with a tent...

There doesn't seem to be any provision for one, the photo on the K mount site doesn't show one either. It's a bit nose-heavy on the tripod but balances fine handheld.

Yep - I have no intention of using it on anything other than the MX or K-m, both of which have metal mounts. To the best of my knowledge only the MZ series had plastic lens mounts?

The 85-210mm, fitted with its lens hood and attached to the MX:

[IMG]http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x21/Kingofthemountains/IMGP1583.jpg[/IMG]

The MX looks as though it's hanging onto the back of a drainpipe - balance isn't bad though!

I set mine to clean the sensor every time. I also make sure that I turn the camera off before changing lenses and always hold the camera facing downwards while doing so. As a result I don't have much trouble with dust - a good thing as the cost of an Arctic Butterfly cleaning tool scares me!

A good photographer can get reasonable results from a terrible lens. However, they'll get superb results from a decent lens.

I've never understood that old nonsense about "a bad workman always blames his tools". If the tools are rubbish then it doesn't matter how skilled you are, the results will be bad. Starting with decent kit gives you a far better chance of a good result.

I wouldn't mind a Pentax FA 28-200mm, but I'm not sure I'd make much use of it now as I have space in my bag for the 18-55mm along with 28mm, 50mm, 120mm (or 135mm) and 200mm primes.

They've probably seen the word "lenses" and failed to realise that you need to remove the e as well as the s to get the singular...

Also, if it's an unused unwanted gift then how come it seems to lack the lens caps? Even mine has those and it has definitely been used (carefully, but the paint is still worn)!

A genuinely unused boxed example would probably be worth a fair sum to a collector, but this blatantly isn't such an example.

Another ebay auction with an optimistic starting bid:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/great-lense-smc-pentax-m-zoom-1-4-5-80mm-200mm-used_W0QQit...

Now, I agree that this is a great lens. I have one that I'm very happy with and fully intend to use on my MX come summer. However, that price is utterly bonkers - mine was a £20 impulse buy!

The weather sealing of the K-7 would be nice to have, but apart from that I can't see how it could be any better (considering that the K-m was intended as a beginner DSLR). I would quite like to know why I have both Program and Green modes though - surely at least one is superfluous?

I'll never understand this thing about "Pros need Nikon or Canon". I think the handful of pros using Sony gear are just as baffled by it!

The only thing Pentax doesn't have compared to them is full frame (and I still think they're leaving that alone in favour of the 645D). Before I bought my K-m last year I looked at Pentax, Nikon, Canon and Sony DSLRs. The K-m was the best camera for the money from all brands.

My K-m is quite happy in low light providing I have a decent lens on. I tend to pick the 50mm f1.7 as it's the fastest lens I own, but I'm expecting good things from the 120mm f2.8 too.