About 30 quid each then. Genuine Pentax Spotmeters are selling for £250-350 each these days. Still, not a bad haul overall

What lens is on the Kodak Retinette? If it's a French made example with an Angenieux lens then they go for silly money too.

I use several brands of camera concurrently (horses for courses and all that) but Pentax is my favoured DSLR brand. I've never had problems with any *new* piece of Pentax equipment (and I can't blame Pentax for faulty second hand goods) and I'd say the quality is up there with anything else I use.

The Internet amplifies the voices of those who complain the loudest, sometimes making it seem as if they're the majority. You'll usually find that if those same people switched to another brand they'd soon find something to complain about there too - in fact some folks just like complaining!

Pentax isn't perfect and doesn't always get everything right, but it seems to get most things right most of the time and no manufacturer can claim better than that.

Are the light meters Pentax? If so you may be surprised at just how much they fetch these days...

Bruges.

I've never been but since seeing the film In Bruges it's been top of my list of places I'd like to go and see - looked absolutely stunning.

By the way, the reason the noise is different is because the mirror remains up between the two shots - all you hear is the shutter closing (which is quite a bit quieter than the usual mirror slap).

When you take a long exposure (say 5 minutes for example) when the shutter closes the camera will take a second exposure of the same duration (5 minutes again) with the shutter closed - this is to allow it to work out how much of the image is sensor generated noise and is called "Dark Frame Subtraction".

During the second exposure the camera will, indeed, be unresponsive to anything you do as it's busy.

So effectively a 30 second exposure takes 1 minute, a 10 minute exposure 20 minutes, a 1 hour exposure 2 hours, etc.

Some of the Pentax DSLRs allow you to switch off Dark Frame Subtraction but I don't know if the K-x is one of them - it'll be in the Custom Menu if it does.

The 400mm f/4 lenses for the 645 system will still be 400mm f/4 lenses regardless of which camera you attach them to - nothing changes in that respect.

What does change are the features, the lenses will be fully manual on a K-5 just as if you were attaching an old K-mount or screw mount lens to your camera. No semi-auto modes (Av, Tv, P, etc) and no AF.

I know. What I meant was the adapters aren't cheap (rather than the lenses which generally are quite good value - especially the 6x7 ones).

A friend of mine has quite an extensive 645 outfit, built up at a combined cost similar to what you'd pay for a single DA*300. I intend putting my bargain-hunting skills to use in assembling a similar 67 kit over the course of 2011

I have access to some FA645 lenses but not an adapter - they're not exactly cheap unfortunately...

All the 645 lenses I've tried have been excellent performers on their native platform so I'd think they should be just as good on a DSLR. Maybe a little on the heavy side though.

I think there may be some confusion here between the DA*60-250 and the FA*250-600. The latter is still available new (to special order) but cost more in the region of £8k last time I looked at one.