it's probably not so much the lens but the apertures that your using, the smaller the aperture the more pronounced dust bunnies will be, try snapping a plain white wall or piece of paper at various apertures and you'll see the difference.

My last printer, Epson R300 was bought at a computer market along with a cheap continuous ink system (the guy even fit it for me while I browsed the rest of the market) it lasted about 5-6 years and cost me about £25 in ink over that period, I had no problem with colours on the prints and although they wouldn't stand up to been displayed on a wall the ones kept away from the light are as good as the day they were printed.

When I upgraded to my Epson 1400 I decided to opt for the Permajet system, the "build" quality of the Permajet is decidedly tacky in comparison to the cheap one on my R300 which had a self contained unit consisting of the 6 ink tanks, the Permajet is simply plastic bottles in a rather flimsy plastic tray, I almost threw it away thinking it was cheap packaging and refilling the bottles is a pain in the ass, you have to unscrew the half full bottle from the lid NOT the other way round, I have also had several problems with blockages but the Permajet head cleaning system does work very well (yes you have to buy that separately)

Having said that, the Permajet inks themselves are very good and produce some suberb prints using the standard Epson profile, I did try loading the generic profiles supplied with the system but the results were terrible.

With hindsight I would have bought a cheap ink system and replaced the inks with Permajets.

PS: Permajet papers are very good too.

It's me, I'm back......briefly.

How did I know HG would still be talking about beer

Speaking of beer HG, do you realise there's the Saltaire Heritage thingy on in April and Steampunks will be in attendance, I reckon you could dress up again and gatecrash, they are meeting in a club after all

We may hop along ourselves if Mrs Spider has finished sewing her Victorian attire.

Your getting quite good at this photography lark Shaun

That'll teach me not to read the forum without my glasses, I read the Salthome meet as the 27th

makes mental note to go check B&B booking for Goth Weekend.....just in case I wasn't wearing glasses

I wouldn't have minded a jaunt round Salthome, but that's the Whitby Goth weekend

Hang on a minute, wasn't it you that was (not so long ago) commenting on my successes and wishing you could do the same

Congratulations, it's about time you got your finger out

The thing with you tube is that artists are getting their music promoted/played to a very wide audience for free.

If someone took our images and made a slideshow to display on you tube most of us would go ballistic, however if we were getting contacted with people saying they'd seen the slideshows wanted to buy some pics it becomes a different ball game.

The flange that protects the aperture stop down lever on the lens and also the lever itself can also vary in height, on some older lenses it can be high enough to foul inside the mirror housing on DSLRs, check inside the camera around the bottom edge of the mount (around where the SDM contacts are) and look for signs of scuffing.

I now have a scene from Spartacus in my head, but in this one everyone on the forum jumps up shouting "I'm John Riley"