If anyone is still looking for the FA-50 F1.4 you might like to try
B&H in New York. Still listed in stock at USD199 plus courier.
B&H seem to carry a good stock of lenses.
I bought both FA 24-90 and recently FA-35 F2.0 long after they had vanished from Australasian and UK dealer sites.

Yes thanks Pete,
I have a *istD and a K100D - I think they both have the same sony sensor.
In the absence of much info on the web, I have been considering doing just as you suggested.
We have a large plateau in the central South Island surrounded by mountains up to 10,000 ft.. Only a 3 hour drive from here. Lots of UV - very blue pictures on film.
I will take both cameras and a selection of lenses and try for myself, with and without UV filters.

I will post any results I get.

Cheers

Hamdala

Does anyone have any information Re: the sensitivity of the sensor used by Pentax to UV??
I have searched 2 forums and the net. All I have so far is on the following site

http://www.dpfwiw.com/filters.htm#uv

There is nothing specific to the pentax sensor which I believe is manufactured by Sony?

NZ has very high levels of UV due to the ozone hole. It affects conventional film cameras quite badly unless a UV filter is used.
But is a filter as neccessary with a DSLR? (apart from lens protection)

Cheers

Hamdala

IMHO selling GOOD lenses is NEVER a good idea (unless you are broke)

Keep them both!!

Cheers

Hamdala

I agree with you George re the optics of the 24-90. They are SUPERB - I wouldn't part with mine, but when you can feel that front element rattling around as you carry the camera it doesn't seem like it would take any rough conditions. Now if it were built like that Tamron it would be perfect.

Maybe mine is a poor specimen.

Cheers

Hamdala

I agree with everybody else re: the Tamron 24-135 and kit 18-55.
They have different uses. Keep both. I rarely use the kit lens as I seldom need to go out to 18mm. but when I do it seems to perform very well.
The only thing I would add re: the Tamron is the weight. Very heavy - coupled to your K100 or K200 you will have a 1.2 Kg combo to carry. Build quality is very good though. Like the proverbial tank.
If you can find one the Pentax FA 24-90 is a good alternative. I got one new from B&H New York a couple of years ago but I see it's no longer available. Downside is, it's much more expensive than the Tamron Optics are great - build quality is lousy. I don't think you would be disappointed with the Tamron.

Hamdala

I bought the *istD shortly after it was released - easy decision having pentax lenses already plus I liked the idea of AA batteries and at the time it was also the smallest DSLR out there.
But how to explain the name - I gave up - just said Pentax and dodged the questions
Then it occurred to me that maybe this was Jinglish and was supposed to be
1stD - being pentax's first attempt??

Now we have the much more sensible K*** naming scheme perhaps we can retrofit the *istD with K1D

Just poking fun at Pentax - any thoughts?

Hamdala

I have to disagree with cropping the sky
That picture tells a complete story from top to bottom
Lovely English summer cloud dumping rain on
a bunch of resolute Brits determined to enjoy
a day at the seaside. The colourful kid at the bottom
obviously doesn't give a damm whether it's rain or
seawater wetting the beach. He's going to have fun.

I like it!!!

Hamdala

Anyone considered using the GIMP, either in Linux or they do release a version for MS-windows now.
I double boot my photocomputer into either windows or Mandriva-Linux.
All linux distributions seem to come with the GIMP for FREE.and the distros cost peanuts anyway.
Might be a way aroung Adobes silly prices.

GIMP is a well written clone of Adobe PS

Might be worth looking at the GIMP website to see if it does it for you.
One thing that really appealed to me was using a photoshop user manual to explore GIMP. (naughty but nice)

One weakness is the handling of RAW files such as pef but it is getting better.

Hamdala

Hi Guys,
Might be a bit late getting on to this post ( only just noticed it)
Here's my bit for what it's worth
Over the years I have done several lengthy trips (2 months +)
through central Sahara, Top end of Australia, Utah Arizona etc.
Never took any sophisticated care of my films. No fridge - No beer!!!
In any real desert, night time is your friend - we used to find a suitable large rock - leave it to go cold overnight - sometimes down to zero degrees
Then bury it in a large bag of clothing along with the film stocks (Dirty washing seems to work just as well) It's surprising how long it stayed cool.
Mind you, traveling in a truck - we had plenty of room.
Never had any noticeable problems with the films - none over 200ASA though
Both slide and negative.
When it comes to passing through airport x-ray machines - if you trust the locals - have your neg films developed before you fly. Not so easy with slides.
Hope this is of some help.

Cheers

Hamdala