I don't know about the legal side (although I doubt the authorities would be all that interested either way) but as these haven't been manufactured for a while now any you get hold of must be relatively old, hence my greatest concern would be do they still work?

It'd be a lot of hassle (and money!) to sell a load of mercury cells if you then end up having to take them all back and issue refunds a couple of weeks further down the line...

Use both hands to support the camera from underneath, keep your elbows bent and tucked in close to your body (pointed down), don't take the shot while inhaling (either exhale or hold your breath) and finally squeeeeeeeeeze the shutter gently - never jab at it. Leave your finger there until after the shutter has closed again, don't snatch it away.

Sooner or later this will become second nature and your shots will become sharper - like everything else in life it just takes a little practice.

Neither will be bitingly sharp (wide open and at full stretch) and performance is probably going to be fairly similar, hence it's more likely to come down to sample variation than anything else. If the guy in the shop is happy for you to try both then do so and see which you prefer - all else being equal I doubt you'll notice anything in the final picture so it'll be handling more than anything else.

The meeting in the South East is on the 16th - thread here.

And I'd have loved to have gone to the Saab International too but I can't get away next weekend. If you do pop down and end up seeing a Nardi steering wheel for a C900 I'd be very interested...

Good price! I've got it's big brother (the Nova 4) and it's my all time favourite camera bag. They are very well put together, able to withstand torrential downpours and have plenty of padding to soak up the knocks - what's not to like?

Firstly PEF vs DNG: It's unlikely that you'll see any difference quality-wise between the two formats so that shouldn't be part of the decision process. The advantage of PEF is that the file sizes are smaller so you can fit more photos on a memory card / hard disc. The advantage of DNG is that it is a more "universal" format and can be read by a greater number of software packages (although all the ones you have mentioned and most of the big-name programmes will open PEF files too). Personally I use PEF but there's no wrong or right answer here.

Secondly sRGB vs Adobe RGB: Here I would suggest sticking to sRGB. Adobe RGB is technically superior as it has a larger gamut (can see more colours) but unless your equipment is also using the Adobe RGB colour space what you'll see will appear washed out. Web browsers only see in sRGB so if you use the Adobe space you'll be forever having to convert everything you put online. As a rule of thumb if you don't understand what a particular colour space is for then you don't need it - stick to sRGB as that's pretty much universal.

Thirdly which software: To a large degree this will come down to personal choice as the differences between the packages are mostly down to functionality and handling (most free applications like iPhoto will only work with JPEGs, hence your RAW files won't open in it - at the bare minimum you need a package to open and adjust RAW files). If you ask a dozen people on this forum which software they use I can pretty much guarantee you'll get a dozen different answers, but a couple of packages seem to get used more than most; one is Photoshop Elements and the other is Silkypix - I won't say which is better as followers of each tend to defend their choices with an almost religious-like zeal and I don't personally use either of them (or Aperture, which is popular among the Mac brigade).

Before we leave software a word about the bundled Pentax Photo Lab; most people hate it or don't even bother loading the discs - I think they're missing out. It doesn't have very many features compared to a commercial package but for me it does enough (you can adjust all the basic image parameters and apply crops and rotations, etc) and on a modern computer it runs quite fast. I actually quite like PPL and as you already have a copy you may as well give it a go before spending cash on one of the others - if you are one of the few who does get on with it then you've saved yourself a few quid, happy days!

Finally using the 50 on the K-m: Yes you can - see the other thread you started for more details on that one.

Good luck!

And on a similar subject, I think the Leica S2 is due to hit the shops at the end of next month - I dread to think how much it'll cost but probably not hugely more than the existing MF DSLRs...

The last I heard it is back on but that it will be a Japanese market only product. Of course with the wonders of the Internet I'm sure you'll be able to get one sent to you from Japan without too much trouble, just be aware that it won't be cheap to buy!

Hello Phil and welcome.

As you have noticed the default output from your K-m is quite different from your Panasonic, this is actually quite deliberate and shouldn't be a concern - let me explain.

With (nearly all) compact and bridge cameras the assumption from the manufacturer is that the photos will be used as-is, in other words the camera will have applied quite a bit of processing to the pictures that come out of it. With DSLR's the opposite is nearly always true; the manufacturer assuming that the photographer is an "enthusiast" who will wish to provide his own Post Processing (usually on a computer with Photoshop or similar software). By taking the latter route the photographer has far more control over the final picture - if you're an ex-film buff then it's like the difference between sending your films to Boots or having your own darkroom, one wins on convenience but the other wins on quality.

Panasonic have a reputation for being rather heavy-handed with their in-camera processing; noise reduction is applied over-zealously which leads to clean images where fine detail has been smeared away, saturation levels can be so high as to be painful to view (and wholly un-natural) and sharpening is so liberally applied that images contain halos around nearly all edges. Later Panasonics are actually much more subtle but your FZ7 was built at a time when they threw the kitchen sink at every shot to make it "consumer friendly" (Other manufacturers have been just as bad so I'm not picking on Panasonic here - I actually quite like their compacts for many reasons).

Your K-m, on the other hand, will apply virtually no in-camera post-processing by default. This means the output will tend to look poor in relation to a compact camera but it contains all the information required to produce a vastly superior final image. For example, once noise reduction has been applied it can't be undone again to get the detail back - that's lost forever. The level and finesse of NR that can be carried out on a PC is a world away from what can be done in-camera and similar principles apply for the saturation / contrast / sharpening / etc. The images that you're getting from your K-m simply reflect the fact that more work is required on your part (to go back to film analogies you've got an exposed film, now you need to develop it).

You'll find that if you shoot JPEGs and rack up the image sliders (contrast / sharpness / saturation / etc) on the K-m then it will output results much more like those you had from your FZ7, but by doing so you're really bypassing the advantages that DSLRs have.

Hope that clears things up a bit anyway

Yes and Yes.

You'll need to set one of the Custom Menu functions to allow use of an aperture ring and you'll be limited to using the camera in (M)anual mode. The metering itself will be Centre-Weighted (the full Matrix metering and Spot metering modes won't be available to you) - in other words the lens will force you to use your K-m much like the MX, which isn't neccessarily a bad thing...

The 50/1.7 is an excellent lens and once you get used to using your K-m in that fashion you should find you'll get superb results from it.