This is a common item, and most camera shops, especially small ones with second-hand gear should have one. Alternatively, there are usually some going on Ebay.

I posted the following as part of a reply in the troubleshooting section, and thought that it might be useful to others who are new to digital photography.

I personally never use the bundled software for downloading images. All you need is a little batch file like this:

move G:dcim100pentx*.* D:Newpics

This will move any file in G:dcim100pentx (which is the path to my images on the card) to my picture folder, D:Newpics.

All you have to do is change the paths to what works on your computer/camera combination and save the file as a text file called anyname.bat (it's the ".bat" that matters).

Then click on the icon for the file and watch your pics download. Much quicker than waiting for the Pentax download software to fire up.

Just one point. My Fuji camera has to reformat the card if I delete all the pictures on it in the computer (which is what happens when you use "Move"). So for the Fuji I use "Copy" instead of "Move", and delete in-camera. I don't know how the Pentax P&S digitals work, but "Move" is fine with the *ist D.

George

Thanks, Kim, that's very helpful.

The 28-70 looks like my best bet.

Rather ominously, I can't find any reviews of your 28-90. I presume it doesn't come up to the standard of the other lens?

George

Many thanks Kevin, but I would really prefer a Pentax lens with AF and auto aperture, so the Tamron doesn't fit the bill, though I am sure it is optically excellent.

Thanks John,

Oddly enough the lens was part of a job lot including an SFX, F 75-210, and the 400 flash. None of it appeared to have ever been used. Neither lens has a mark on it of any sort, and the other lens is a cracker. Perhaps the 35-70 has a manufacturing fault of some sort.

George

Over the past year I have been building up my collection of Pentax lenses using Ebay.

I haven't bought anything very exotic, and have not paid very much. The average price has been under £40.00, for lenses in excellent condition.
Some have been replacements for lenses I used to own, like the lovely 75-150mm zoom (I left my first one in a taxi!), and almost all have been excellent.

The one exception has been the 35-70, which produces muddy, low contrast pictures. I believe this to be the same lens optically as the A version, which gets quite good marks on Stan's site.

If anybody else has this lens I would welcome their comments. It's a useful little zoom, and I'd like to know if mine is a dud, or if they are all like this.

To be fair to Pentax, they do say that the camera is not compatible with Win 98.

If you buy a card reader, you can download the images without upgrading your operating system.

I personally never use the bundled software for downloading images. All you need is a little batch file like this:

move G:dcim100pentx*.* D:Newpics

This will move any file in G:dcim100pentx (which is the path to my images on the card) to my picture folder, D:Newpics.

All you have to do is change the paths to what works on your computer/camera combination and save the file as a text file called anyname.bat (it's the ".bat" that matters).

Then click on the icon for the file and watch your pics download. Much quicker than waiting for the Pentax download software to fire up.

Just one point. My Fuji camera has to reformat the card if I delete all the pictures on it in the computer (which is what happens when you use "Move"). So for the Fuji I use "Copy" instead of "Move", and delete in-camera. I don't know how the Pentax P&S digitals work, but "Move" is fine with the *ist D.

I know nothing about this camera, but I suspect that it is either having trouble focussing in the dark, or it is using a slow shutter speed, and suffering from camera shake. According to the manual, you need to put it on a tripod for night mode. If you are not doing this, that's almost certainly the cause of your problem.

I think it would be impracticable to restrict access to ads to registered members only. If no registered member wanted something, that would mean no sale, even if a non-registered visitor was ready to stump up the readies.

However, in the case of both a visitor and a regular contending to buy, there would be nothing to stop a seller from selling to the regular if he so wished.

I don't think the problem has yet reached the proportions of an epidemic.

There have in fact been very few advertisements appearing here; although the one from Gordon did attract a number of responses.

The addition of a section within the forum specifically for ads would surely solve whatever problem there is, and in fact it would be an improvement on the existing classified ads section of the site because it would:

a) be more visible, with no need to visit the ad section to see if there was a new ad
b) allow sellers to post answers to questions
c) result (possibly) in more ads, which would generate more traffic to the forum.