See here, makes for interesting reading. I do find that close-ups of objects (especially the old trick of a familiar object from an odd angle and carefully cropped) get more "what on earth is that?" comments, which imply that they make the viewer think about what they're seeing.

Interestingly, the last time I saw a builder at work he was checking things with his level in both directions (just like the suggested test procedure). With enough experience you can tell it isn't right, the level just convinces you either way!

I used to have a hotshoe level but lost it ages ago, I haven't felt the urge to replace it. Providing I have time to settle my images tend to be decently level, although grabbed shots can be wobbly as I tend to line up on known horizontal or vertical lines in the composition.

I often think it'd be good if Pentax responded to the usual glowing reviews of other brands in the mass media with a simple fact-by-fact explanation of why they deserve more consideration. I recently saw a schools gadget magazine pushing a Nikon as the best beginner DSLR, when to be honest I thought it looked seriously counter-intuitive to use. The school which buys the Nikon will have to budget for VR lenses too.

I have only bothered with the manual for my K-m on one or two occasions, neither of which were related to normal shooting (working out how to get Pictbridge to work for printing). It just makes sense. Much like my old KX and KM where providing you've got a basic understanding of photography you can pick the camera up and start shooting within a minute.

Prices have got silly, but the old Pentax 100mm f4 (sold as SMC Pentax and SMC Pentax-M, same lens, different lettering) still holds its end up pretty well judging by the test shots I've seen. I seriously considered buying one but realised that I don't do much macro photography.

One trick which might come in handy - if you want an extension tube with the A contacts and see a PK-A fit teleconverter you can usually unscrew the elements to convert it into an extension tube. I did this with an old Jessop 2x TC (no loss, cropped images from my 200mm f4 were better than images with the same lens plus the TC!) and it worked perfectly when I tried it with my Samyang 85mm, which otherwise has a minimum focus distance of about a metre.

It's not much of an advert for the 50-200mm is it?

I've got an old Pentax-F 80-200mm which I paid a tenner for with a bit of mould, cleaned that out very easily (was only the inside of the front element) and reset the infinity position, it's now a decent performer. I've used it for shots from moving vehicles before now (staving off boredom as a passenger on motorway) and it coped astonishingly well.

If you look at the lens mount, does it have any of the little studs as on the A series lens? I can't think what else "P" would be for.

That sounds more normal!

In Av mode the lens is held at the widest aperture regardless of what you set the aperture ring to. To use all the apertures you need to do the stop down metering in M mode trick.

From what I understand the Ricoh pin is only found on PK-A fit lenses intended for their later SLRs, I'd imagine your version of the lens just says "R-P/K" for sales purposes, as it's highly likely that a lot of Ricoh owners were unaware that lenses made to fit the Pentax K mount would work on their camera.

I know that 1985 Argos catalogue scan someone posted a link to a while ago had similar wording around the Hanimex zoom lenses - the K mount was stated to fit the ME Super and the Ricoh they also sold.

The 35mm-at-the-long-end is identical to the Pentax-M lens of the same focal range, I was a bit puzzled by it too until I saw the theory that it's intended for stability. When you pull the lens in to 70mm the camera becomes steadier as your hand is closer in.

Many older lenses claim "macro" but really just offer close focusing.

I'm intrigued by it metering correctly in Av using the aperture ring, this shouldn't be possible!

Nice idea, but scarily expensive! I can see it being useful to someone taking photos for travel guides, surveyors, etc though, if it's accurate enough.

Also consider the privacy implications before you go shooting with one of these and upload the images to the web. It isn't beyond the bounds of possibility for websites to look at the GPS data attached to your uploads and start tracking where you go.

I might be wrong, but I thought the *ist had the crippled mount? I know the FA J lenses were introduced to go with it.

It would explain why MZ6s don't turn up in massive numbers, as they're clearly very flexible cameras and their owners don't want to let go.