Gareth alerted us to that. He did start with a Kx and actually my favourite shot of his was taken with it. I'd be interested in seeing the article but I can't get it in France or in any suitable digital format.

Is it worth reading?

Without wishing to denigrate your efforts I'm going against the flow again as these shots don't appeal to me. I think that very close shots really must have oodles of sharp detail as the attraction of such shots is a world beyond our normal seeing. The background needs to be unobtrusive but complimentary and plain white rarely works imo. The depth of field that close is shallow and that makes it really difficult to get the detail in a single shot. For me really close shots are as much a technical, even scientific exercise where the beauty is all in the appreciatiion of the bioengineering. I think for a shot with more natural, pictorial appeal pull back some and get a more 'environmental' image showing the beast in its natural setting. As it is within the realm of our normal seeing it gives much more scope for playing with the point of focus, composition and depth of field. It really is very difficult and these are good first steps.

There are some examples here to play with. Kind of cool, although image quality is dire. I'd buy one for £30. Just have to wait for the price to drop 90%.

The next big thing is a very expensive little handheld camera that can take a 360 degree image and send it to a smartphone so you can show your mates not just yourself standing in the middle of the pub but everything else in the pub too and all in gloriously low quality. Or to avoid yourself taking up 120 degrees of the image you can put it on a table, stand well back, trigger it remotely then chase the bloke who's just nicked it down the street. It looks ideal for gimmick lovers with loadsamoney and possibly estate agents. They might find some other extreme niche uses for it, the International Space Station perhaps.

Having seen this I wonder why artists through the centuries have gone for conventional quadrilateral formats and not circular images. Maybe this will change the world of imaging. Or not. Now chuck it in the bin please Ricoh and get your design team to produce something that will stem the tide of Pentaxians off to Nikon.

It's here but........don't get too excited:

That's muted anyway to make way for a bit of Joy Division.

Cue the gathering of the mass ranks of the underwhelmed and the indignant.

I wonder how many pages we can stretch it to.

How about a full frame camera with Pentax written on it. We can talk about chow mein, toffee and trousers in the meantime.

Vesta meals.

Not working for me either. It is one of those images that pulls the eye in different directions and therefore feels confused and makes for somewhat uncomfortable viewing as it doesn't allow the eye to settle. The path draws the eye towards the top and into the scene whereas the in focus part draws the eye away again.