Excellent photo - almost begging to be a caption competition!

I take it there was a happy ending then?

Personally, I always give buyers the benefit of the doubt and only start worrying if I haven't heard within 7 days. Normally by then I've either had PayPal payment or a cheque - I've only had to file a non-paying bidder report once in 5 years of regular selling on there. Just my $0.02

The sheer excess of some of those fees! I've paid enough to eBay/PayPal over the years to send all their founders' children through college and I've never complained - until now...

It's not only the way that they've jacked up the fees on the categories that are bound to get the heaviest use at this time of year (xmas is coming), but also the way that the front page notice makes a big play of the lower insertion charges without even mentioning the higher FV fees until you go searching for the small print (in the link I initially posted).

While fleecing the gullible is hardly a new corporate sport I don't see that I should condone it with a shrug. My personal boycott (from now until 31/12) won't bring them to their knees or make a dent in their profits but it will make me feel better.

It's a karma thing...

Any rival to eBay in the UK would have to have a fair chunk of money behind it in order to worm its way into the public conscious - eBay has a massive advertising budget on TV, newspapers, etc.

Setting up an alternate market would be easy, getting people to use it? Much harder!

If you were thinking of selling any photo equipment (or toys and games)on eBay UK between now and the end of the year then I'd suggest you read this first:

http://pages.ebay.co.uk/sell/oct2007toysphoto/

It's billing itself as a cheaper way to insert a listing, which is technically true, however, the final value fees make eye-watering reading. Safe to say they won't get any more business from me in 2007, serve them right for cynically exploiting the largest Christmas markets...

I find 3 way heads to be more precise but cumbersome, whereas ball heads I find more intuitive but lacking the nth degree of precise control.

For landscapes I would suggest a 3 way head to ensure horizons are level and minimal post-processing for stitching panoramas etc, for wildlife I would suggest a ball head as it's quicker to position and wildlife rarely hangs around until you're ready to shoot!

Either would probably do a good job on a full-time basis though.

On reflection, I hope you weren't just after geometric patterns or I'm b******d! I never can seem to get the hang of these competition things...

In answer to the original post, I leave mine switched on and I've never felt the need to clean the sensor (not even with an air blower). I've not heard of anybody who has broken their K10D by means of excessive sensor shaking, however, if it should happen to me years down the line then I think I'll probably still have had good value out of the camera - I paid £499 for it in June and I've now clocked up nearly 4000 shots, an average of £0.12 per shot and going down daily. I haven't done the sums but I reckon that's probably the best cost-per-picture ratio of any camera I've ever owned!

I'd much rather take the risk of a reduced overall lifespan due to sensor shake than bring that death forward by ham-fisted attempts at sensor swabbing - but that's just me, it's your camera so treat it how you feel most comfortable with...

You can only set it to shake when switched on rather than switched off, however, the duration of the shaking is about 1/2 second - about the same as it takes to pick the camera up and place the viewfinder to your eye - so I doubt you could use this as an excuse for missing a once in a lifetime shot.