You (and others who for some reason insist on using USB cables to connect to their computers) would save yourself a lot of grief by buying a card reader.

http://www.7dayshop.com/catalog/normal_search_result.php?PHPSESSID=&keywords...

You pop the card into the reader and it acts like another disk drive.

If you have a laptop, you can buy a PCMCIA device. Otherwise a USB reader will work on any computer with a USB port.

It really is the only way to go. I do not know why camera manufacturers include USB/Firewire connectivity. It has no advantages and just causes a lot of aggravation.

George

It's nearly always best to telephone, rather than email.

G

If you can't see anything wrong with the flash tube, then it sounds to me as though something shorted the capacitor. You're lucky the camera continued to function in other respects because for a brief moment you had quite a lot of electricity flying around.

G

Google. What else?

The problem is, Kimbo, that what we'd like, and what's actually going to happen, are not necessarily one and the same.

If there is no market for a Nikon full-frame SLR, there must be even less of one for a Pentax. The cost would have to be £3,000 or so, at least, and how many people are going to pay that? The answer is: not enough to make it profitable.

But I think we'll soon see a Pentax 10 or 12MP DSLR in APS format. "Soon" of course, is an elastic term, but I'd stick my neck out and say by Spring next year. It will probably have image stabilisation in the body.

George

I'm afraid I don't share Kimbo's certainty that Pentax will produce a full-frame K-mount DSLR.

They HAVE announced a 645 DSLR (or rather, a camera that has a large chip and takes 645 lenses).

Most full-frame DSLRs have gone (Kodak and Contax), and Nikon shows no sign of producing one. Only Canon makes them and they are expensive.

Meanwhile, pixel counts for APS DSLRs (like Pentax) are increasing, and new ultra-wide-angle lenses for the APS format are coming out all the time.

Who knows what the future will bring, but my money is on the APS format, not full-frame.

The new D lenses are very sharp, and are said to be less prone to chromatic aberration than normal lenses. Having said that, I have seen very little sign of CA on any of my lenses.

George

If sharpness is a major consideration, you should avoid zooms with a huge zoom range. Ten times is asking for trouble.

If you had £200, I'd suggest a second-hand Pentax-M 300mm with the 1.7 AF convertor. For £500, I'd suggest a second-hand F or FA 300mm f4.5 with the same convertor or the 1.4 convertor.

But for £800, I'm stumped. I don't know enough about non-Pentax lenses to be able to say anything useful, and the Pentax 400mm and 600mm AF lenses are outside the budget and very rare.

Good luck

G

It's horses for courses. If you need to use long, fast, lenses with super-fast AF, then buying a Pentax is probably not a very wise decision.

For many other applications, such as people or landscape photography, buying a Canon is probably not a very wise decision.

G

Arthur,

The fact is that while the MX is a wonderful camera, they stopped making them in 1985, and it is no longer economical to repair them.

If you really want to use one of the new cheap sans-aperture-ring lenses like the FAJ 18-35 on a film body, you can pick up an SFX for £25.00, or an MZ5 for not much more. And I have to say, I should be very surprised if you don't already own such a camera.

But as a pro, you surely don't want to lower your standards by buying one of these cheap and nasty consumer lenses.

George

Arthur, you have quickly become the resident Meldrew on this forum!

Addressing your points:

First, there is not a snowball's chance in Hell that Pentax is going to bring out a 12mm prime when they have only recently introduced a 14mm. That would make no sense whatsoever. It's not going to happen.

Second, I would have slightly more sympathy with your oft-repeated point about aperture rings if you hadn't recently bought a camera that doesn't need them. Once you put your prejudices aside, and grapple with that monster called "Change" that you seem to find so terrifying, you will find that it is actually easier to set the aperture on the body (particularly if you have the pro-oriented *ist D, with its two wheels, rather than the amateur's DS or DL).

Third, the 14mm lens costs over £600 in the UK, and the 16-45mm zoom that you mentioned costs roughly half that. What was your point about primes being cheaper? They would be, if people still bought them in quantity, but nowadays primes are low-volume, high-price items.

Best wishes!

George