I've always been baffled by people who moan about P&P charges in feedback. They're clearly stated in the auction, if you think they're unfair then don't bid/buy.

Do you think the spermicial coating will help stop lens fungus?

True, in those cases P&P was around the £5 mark.

I think the basic problem is that most online stores will charge you around £5 for postage. A large retailer can get away with this as they'll sell both smaller items that don't actually cost them £5 to post and larger ones that cost more, but obviously represent a larger profit. They can also take advantage of bulk prices for materials and postage - I bet Amazon get a better rate from couriers than you or I would as private individuals, for example.

I'm always happy to see recycled packaging, providing that the seller has done it sensibly. The only types I'm not keen on are polystyrene "peanuts" and shredded paper as they both go everywhere and the latter tends to cover the contents in dust!

I don't seem to see many genuine bargains on ebay now. Certainly lens prices have got especially silly of late. I can remember seeing Pentax-A 50mm f2s for £20 three or four months ago, the same lenses seem to be going for a lot more now. I even saw a fungus-infected (and sold as such) A 50mm f1.7 go for over £36 - I had paid £42 for my mint example only a couple of weeks before!

Mine seems to go through instantly, then it takes PP three days to take it from my bank account via direct debit.

This would be why I spotted that some sewer-dweller had ripped off my card details recently - there was a Visa Paypal payment on there. I don't use my card for Paypal, and the payment wasn't shown in my PP history. Card is now cancelled and the bank fraud squad are chasing it up.

A Pentax-A 200mm f4

[IMG]http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x21/Kingofthemountains/IMGP1050.jpg[/IMG]

I bought this camera described as "untested", it seems to work though. I was interested as it was Pentax's first with a built-in motor wind, and the fact that you still have to rewind the film manually means that I should be able to use it with my daylight developing tank (which requires you to leave the tongue of film out so the tank can pull it in).

The 200mm f4 was a lucky sighting on Carmarthen Camera Centre's website, I'd been looking at the M series version for a while but decided to spend a bit more for the A version.

I think it's more of an experience thing than an age thing. We simply don't get weather like this often enough for them to learn how to handle snow.

I got my provisional licence in late November 2000, I had just enough time to learn the basics before the usual snow and ice hit. I had a Citroen ZX diesel at the time, which turned out to be great on snow as you barely needed to accelerate to pull away. Narrow tyres meant that it would dig down and find grip, and with no ABS the brakes still worked.

ABS is a real pain in snow, and I really think it should be switchable. You just don't have any brakes on ice as it panics, even pumping the pedal won't help.

Be a bit careful hurling snowballs at your dish, they rely on a very fine alignment to receive the signal and being knocked offline by a millimetre or so can stop it working!

Have a look in your local pound shop. Ours has assorted sizes of frame. They're nothing special, just plain light wood but they look ok on the wall. I tend to buy a handful of the A4 ones every so often and print a few recent photos.

View from a back window of my house a few hours ago. 30 seconds at f4.5:

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

This began life as two photos but seems to have stitched well