This is my understanding:

SR is designed to deal with the relatively large and slow vibrations caused by delirium tremens (in my case!) or simple hand trembling.

The vibrations experienced by a camera on a tripod are of a completely different order; much smaller and faster.

The AS is unable to keep up with such vibrations, but (being stupid) will nonetheless attempt to do so. It will fail, and may actually cause greater instability.

G

Your photos automatically open in Pentax Lab because that is how (no doubt inadvertently) you have set the file associations.

Look up File Associations in Help to see how to change the default behaviour.

G

Actually you seem to have got quite a good deal, though I suspect you have slightly fewer items of kit than I do.

G

How much have you paid out in premiums over the last twenty years (adjusted for inflation)?

And how much have you claimed back?

G

I suspect "Mombass" was a typo, but funnily enough, that's how the Portugese used to spell it.

But that was a long time ago, too!

I looked up your hotel on the web (it didn't exist in my day), and was surprised to see, on several sites, that the Kenya coast is now referred to as the Mombasa Coast. I imagine this is so that unsuspecting touroids can go there in happy ignorance that this is actually that dangerous country where the game wardens barbecue the visitors over open fires.

The same used to happen in Jamaica. Holidays were advertised as being in "Negril" (a village with a nice beach). Jamaica was never mentioned.

Some Caribbean countries let Americans in without passports. The Yanks are presumably under the happy illusion that they are either in Florida or Hawaii. And most of them seem to think that Cozumel is in New Mexico.

G

And don't forget the long, shiny, black, millipedes with red legs. In my day they were called Tanganyika Trains.

G

That's lovely, Rodger. Presumably it's a Vervet. Where did you take the picture? In one of the parks, or by the road?

G

For me, Boat Launch is a near perfect picture. Simplicity itself, wonderful composition, superb light, beautifully exposed, and one of those picture opportunities that most of us would have just not realised was there.

And on top of all that, it has a quality of expectancy, of latent possibility. You feel something is about to happen (or perhaps has just happened), but you don't know what. The tension is palpable.

Stunning, Josh. Well done.

G

Rule 1. Pay no attention to Jessops.

With any digital camera, the best way to get the pictures out of the camera is to buy a card reader (around £10, or less), and slot the card into the reader, which is plugged into the computer.

I have several of these. One is a PCMCIA device, which resides permanently in a PCMCIA slot in my laptop (all older laptops had these).

The others are USB or USB2 devices, which will plug into a USB port in your computer.

You don't need the software that come with the camera, and by using a reader you can view and edit the pictures on a Mac or Linux box, or even a PC with BeOS or OS/2.

G

The camera has to be in manual mode. This is always the case with studio flash, on any camera.

It means you get totally consistent light, with none of the problems that can affect flash using TTL or P-TTL, such as reflections causing the meter to cut off the flash too early.

As for the synchronisation, you have three choices:

1 You can fit a pc socket adapter to the hotshoe, and then connect to one of the flash units by cable. (The others should be triggered by the light from the first, provided they have sensors incorporated. Most do, but some old ones need to have a separate sensor attached.) The problem with cables is that either they are too short, or you will trip over them.

2 You can use the built-in flash on the camera to trigger the studio flash units. This is hard on the battery, and you may not want light coming directly from the camera.

3 The best way is to attach an IR trigger to the camera's hotshoe.

G