I don't use UV filters for protection, I just make sure the hood's always attached. If I *did* use them though (and I undestand the arguments for their use even if I don't subscribe to them) I'd buy the very best ones that I could afford - it seems a bit pointless to spend a lot of money on a lens and then stick a cheap piece of glass on the front which could be detrimental to image quality.

The few filters I do have are all either B+W or Hoya, like everything else in life you get what you pay for!

You do pick up some cracking bargains Clarky!

The ME with the 40mm pancake must be as close as anyone's ever made to a "pocketable" 35mm SLR - nice combination.

And it'll be interesting to see what shots you come up with using the bellows; stick your D-FA100 on the end and reverse the M50 onto that and we must be talking massive reproduction ratios - happy days!!

I'd actually start off with a new (in date) film as this may well be a one-off so you want to give the experience a chance! If you like what you see then you can always try one of the out-of-date films afterwards.

At this time of year when sunlight is in short supply I'd probably go for an ISO400 film as a good all-rounder, and stick to either Fuji or Kodak (or Ilford if you fancy B&W) - ignore the cheap and cheerful stuff (Boots own brand etc) as you'll get what you pay for in the end!

You may end up wanting to keep it...

I think it's really down to personal preference and subject matter. I tend to prefer gloss but there really is no "right and wrong", just what appeals to you.

Just to confuse you further, there are different grades of paper and not all papers from different manufacturers are exactly the same - even if they are both, for example, marked as gloss paper.

By trial and error I've found I like the look of Fuji Reala film printed on Kodak gloss paper, but the only way you'll find your own favourite is to try a few out - the combinations are almost limitless!

The comparative merits are nicely summed up in this article. The Metz wins in a lot of areas over the 360 but doesn't feature an auto mode, nor can it be used as a controller in a wireless set up (slave only).

I've got the Pentax 360 and find it's absolutely perfect for almost everything I've ever needed to do - if I could add just one more feature it would be a swivel head but I generally find ways to work around this.

Hello Bernadette, welcome to the forum

I don't think you'll ever get a concensus on this one as photography means different things to different people.

For some people photography is all about the capture; they are often at least part-way obsessed with the equipment they use and the manner in which they use it to get the decisive moment on record. As a general rule they spend comparatively little time enjoying the fruits of their labours as they're too busy lining up the next shot. In the caveman days they'd be the hunters.

Others enjoy the art of manipulating photos and tend to shoot pictures as a means of providing raw material to be endlessly tweaked post-capture. As long as the camera they use provides acceptable results then they're far less concerned with the intracacies of the capture process, preferring instead to create their own visions at their own leisure. Again, these people tend to spend little time admiring their results as the next project is always just on the horizon. These would be the tribal cooks.

Finally you have those who really don't care for the technicalities as long as the end result looks good. These people may not own anything more than a camera-phone but for them the enjoyable part of the hobby is endlessly reviewing the photos they (or someone else) have taken in order to invoke (normally happy) memories. These are the tribal diners.

I'd imagine most people on this forum fit in either the hunter or the cook categories (although even hunters and cooks have to eat sometimes so we all have a little diner inside us). Some of us split our time between categories, for instance I'm a hunter as a hobby but do quite a bit of cooking (photographically speaking) for work.

The point I'm trying to make (underneath all the tortured metaphors) is that photography needs all of these types of people. If you're one of the lucky ones who fits equally into all three categories then all you've done is broaden the scope of your hobby - would that be such a bad thing?

On the K10D the meter operating time can be changed under the "Custom" menu - the default is 10 seconds but you can change that to 20 or 30 seconds. I'd guess the K20D is the same.

You're not confused Steve, it's me...

I misread your original post and I was talking about multiple exposures, not extended bracketing - sorry!

Extended bracketing allows you to bracket certain settings (like WB, contrast, etc) in much the same way you'd normally bracket exposure settings. Only useful if you shoot JPEG and want to be able to choose the "best" picture from a selection post capture; if you're shooting RAW then you can make an almost infinite number of variations from the one original file. Hope that clears that up!

For those who wanted a multi-exposure how-to I'll gather some pictures together and make a seperate thread showing some of the tricks you can do. You may have to wait a day or two though...