My Dad's got about twenty years of slides stashed away - from the late 70s through to the late 1990s. I recently pulled out some of the earliest to try them with my new slide/negative scanner and found them perfectly usable. There are even some 110 slides in there which looked to have survived well. They're all stored at a fairly stable temperature in plastic boxes (the sort where you pull the magazines out and put them into the projector), seems to have worked so far!

There's a distinctive colour cast on transparencies I find - not undesirable, in fact it gives them something of a nostalgic glow. I'm determined to buy a couple of rolls of slide film from Boots this summer and put them through my MX (or my SF7, which I still want to try out).

Back to films, I really don't understand the snobbery around some directors. Truffaut, for example, I find unbelievably tedious. I'd far rather an enjoyably brainless blockbuster like Armageddon, or a superbly filmed and historically accurate war film like Das Boot.

I've even seen it dubbed into German before, which leads to an amusing anecdote:

Supposedly, Arnie isn't allowed to do his own German dubbing (even though he speaks the language) because his accent could be described as "rural Austrian". It would cause hoots of laughter in Germany in the same way that having the Wurzels deliver the Terminator's lines would here!

One of the best bits about using an MX!

Looks good - I've dealt with three fungus-infested 50mm lenses but sent my 200mm prime off to A M Technical Services to be fixed. I know when it's beyond my skills!

You don't seem to see many heavily used telephoto primes, I'm guessing that most were bought by people who didn't use them as much as they did the standard kit lens (50/55mm).

Sticky apertures can be simple but often aren't. I've never taken an M42 lens apart, but on the K mount ones you can usually see the mechanism if you take the lens mount off. I'd probably try a few tiny drops of lighter fuel and working the mechanism to see if it frees up.

Legally you could, in the case I mentioned the trouble was of a "bad PR" nature. Nobody wants graphic photos of the aftermath of an accident that killed a relative to be shown to complete strangers without their prior knowledge (as opposed to cases where they agree for them to be used in road safety films, for example).

By all means let the cops know that you have decent photos and send them a copy, but after that I'd say to delete them. Wouldn't want things like that in my collection.

Certainly do not post them online. A senior cop recently got into a lot of trouble (rightly so) after showing photos of a dead motorcyclist to the press without the permission of the deceased's next of kin

I have the earlier F version (same lens, just no power zoom. The lens mount is metal on mine). It seemed to be regarded as the best of the long zooms that I could find for sensible money, and it's not a bad performer. A little fuzzy at 300mm but usable, and the fuzziness only really shows if you crop images. Here's a shot of a sparrow on my bird feeder (heavily cropped):

I went in search of an Auto 110 last month, ended up paying £15 for a very nice one with a 24mm lens and flash included. They're superb little cameras, just a pity they never caught on. I keep being tempted by a 50mm lens for it after seeing one for £13 with both caps and lens hood...

The concept of "recycling" is barmy where lenses are concerned. The original K series could quite easily have been used by three generations of the same family, provided that they're looked after they'll work for as long as you can find a camera to mount them on. I fully expect my K 55mm to be baffling teenagers with its lack of auto anything in the 2050s!

Mind you, I've never liked recycling full stop. I'd rather products that can be repaired easily or reused, rather than having to be sent back through the system.

Got my 200mm f4 from Carmarthen Camera Centre, turned up quickly enough.