I don't know what species (s)he is but I like the photos! The top-down one (#3) stands out for me because of the strong colours. Also, the way the 8 eyes look like a skull reminds me of some futuristic death-robot straight from a Manga cartoon. Probably the way his prey see him in the here and now in fact!

Good shots.

Beaten to the punch

The A mounts have the "A" position on the aperture ring allowing the camera to "talk" to the lens and, therefore, work in all picture modes. The M's don't have this feature and so will only work in Manual and Aperture Priority modes with stop-down metering.

The A's - needless to say - fetch more money, however, the M's are probably just as good optically so represent more of a bargain if you're comfortable with using your camera manually.

The biggest problem with being a Pentax user is finding somewhere that actually stocks Pentax items - not an easy task as you're finding out! Still, it makes the experience a little more "exclusive".

There are 5 "Pentax Pro" centres in the North West who should hold stocks (although I'd ring to check first if I were you). They are:

MATHERS PHOTOGRAPHICS LTD.
23 MARKET STREET
BOLTON
BL1 1BU
01204 522186

(I've used their mail order service and can say they are an excellent company to deal with).

CAMERA SOLUTIONS LTD
18 FRODSHAM STREET
CHESTER
CH1 3JL
01244 403540

LONDON CAMERA EXCHANGE
37 PARKER STREET
MANCHESTER
M1 4AJ
0161 236 5819

KAMERA ALTRINCHAM LTD.
3 STAMFORD NEW ROAD
ALTRINCHAM
WA14 1BE
0161 9277585

FOCALPOINT OPTICS LTD
HIGHER WHITLEY
UNIT 8 BENTLEYS FARM LANE
WARRINGTON
WA4 4QW
01925 730399

Good luck - they are out there but you may just have to hunt a bit harder than you did with your Nikon...

I've used a friend's Nikon D200 with a VR lens and I don't think there's much (if any) difference in the end results in my opinion. Of course, in-lens anti shake gives you a stabilised view through the viewfinder (which is nice!) but in-body anti shake allows you to use it with all your lenses without extra cost. For this reason I prefer in-body but I don't think it gives any performance advantage.

Glad you got on well with the K20D though - maybe your improvements are down to the camera suiting you better? There's no substitute for something that feels "right" in your hands after all!

Firstly, there is no DA50 (of any description) in the range - this is a focal length where the FA is still in production.

Secondly, you'll be hard pressed to find an FA50/1.7 as they haven't been made in a while and second-hand ones tend to fetch almost as much as brand new FA50/1.4s.

The 1.7 is certainly a good lens (if you can find one) but the 1.4 is favoured by most people - hence its extended production life span.

If you're happy to use manual focus and stop-down metering then may I suggest you look at the M50/1.7? These can be had on eBay / camera fairs / boot sales etc for around £10-15 (mint) and are superb performers on both film and digital.

If you want to compare shots taken with each lens then go to the Pentax Photo Gallery - navigate to Image Data > Lens and choose your optic from the drop down list. There are great examples in there from lenses old and new and might help sway any purchase decisions...

The most modern lenses (designed in the digital era) are called DA lenses. These come in three flavours; the standard DA's are reasonably well built and offer good performance at a comparatively low price, the DA* range are pro lenses with weather sealing, SDM "silent" focussing and larger apertures, and finally the DA Limited range are exquisite little hand-assembled jewells and are fast(-ish) primes with superior imaging qualities.

The previous generation of lenses are called FA (the same standard / * / Limited suffixes apply) and some are still in production - but not many. These were AF/film era lenses so they cover the whole 35mm frame and have aperture rings (the DA's don't) but they lack the quick-shift focus system of the newer DA lenses. Many think the FA Limited range (31/1.8 - 43/1.9 - 77/1.8 ) are some of the best lenses ever made - I'd tend to agree!

The D-FA range is small (just 50/2.8 and 100/2.8 macros) but is the best of both DA and FA worlds: They are full-frame lenses that are quite happy on film cameras (I use mine on a 1976 Pentax MX as well as my K10D) due to the aperture ring, but are small and light like the DA series and share their quick-shift focus mechanism.

Anything other than DA, FA and D-FA will be older but not to be discounted! There are some cracking older lenses out there and your DSLR will take any Pentax lens ever made (although you'll need an adapter for the pre-75 screw mount lenses). The older they get the less features they'll have (like autofocus on the pre-F generation and auto-aperture on the pre-A generation) but your camera will give you metering, focus compensation and shake reduction on all of them.

Matt's suggestions for lens choices are pretty much the ones I would have made and certainly SRS is a good place to buy from. And Dan's quite right about the DA*300, it does look to be a fantastic lens, but you could buy all the lenses on Matt's list and have change from the price of just one DA*300 so it depends what sort of budget you have.

Welcome to the forum.

It depends what mode you're in. In the automatic and semi-automatic modes the camera will set the aperture for you. In aperture-priority and manual modes you set the aperture value via the control wheel located by your right thumb.

You'd probably get a better response if you'd posted this in the "lenses" section - I'm sure one of the mods will be along soon to move it.

We've had this question several times before and you'll find roughly equal numbers who prefer the Sigma over the Tamron and vice-versa. The general concensus seems to be that the Tamron is just a touch sharper but the Sigma is slightly less prone to purple fringing.

In the real world you're unlikely to notice much difference in your results so I'd say go for the one that's (a) in stock and (b) cheapest.

Good luck!

I can "force" purple fringing with mine (branches against a bright sky, lens wide open, etc) but then I can do that with pretty much any lens. Generally the 12-24 seems remarkably resistant to such things.

BB2 must have had a poor copy I reckon.