Not completely but I foresee there will be far fewer in the future. SLR buyers will still exist but I imagine their numbers will be similar to the number of people who buy large format field cameras today - very much a tiny niche in the camera market.

In 20 years most people will be using thought-controlled flying cameras the size of a credit card that are better at spotting photo opportunities than photographers and will automatically blur the faces of anyone not recognised as having signed a model release (as held on the central government database). Shooting modes will include sickly kittens and luke warm tapioca pudding amongst 14m+ others. Lenses will have effective focal lengths of 1-10,000mm at a constant f/1.0 and will be constructed of translucent flubber with an artificial intelligence roughly equivalent to 2.7 giraffes. Resolution will be at 50 Terapixels and ISO levels will remain completely noise free until 1,600,000,000. Flash will no longer be required for most circumstances but will sync at up to 1/24,000sec for fill-in. Viewfinders will also be redundant as images will be taken automatically at all focal lengths at all times in a 360 degree sphere - you simply tell the camera what sort of shot you fancy seeing and it finds it for you. Depth of field can be infinitely adjusted by moving the sensor (so small it is no longer visible to the human eye) to make automatic bokeh panoramas. People will still come onto PU to moan that they're not full frame and their treasured FA35-80 doesn't offer the same angle of view as it did on their MZ-30. They will be drowned out by people who think Pentax is doomed because the new Canon has two sickly kitten modes.

I'll still be debating whether to upgrade from the K10D...

I don't know about the sync speed but my 360 won't change into any mode other than P-TTL when it is attached to the camera and the camera is turned on. To get around it I just take it off the body, set it to manual and then return it to the body - seems to do the trick.

Treading water here...

As we're showing some love for the inside of a K2 here's the outside of one too (taken a few weeks ago) - I have the proper case and strap but keep meaning to get some strap protectors to avoid damaging the finish.

[IMG]http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd37/hefty1969/IMGP9176.jpg[/IMG]

The two outer points only recognise contrast flowing horizontally, the inner 9 points recognise it in both horizontal and vertical directions. When you use the outer points they require a nice strong line to run across them or they get a bit confused (in my experience). Once you know what they're looking for to lock onto you'll find they can be just as accurate as the cross points (albeit 50% less versatile).

If you can get hold of a slip-on magnifier (any strength) to fit your camera then you'll probably find your local optician would be willing to make a replacement glass eyepiece to your prescription. Worth asking anyway - I doubt the big chains like Specsavers would be interested but most independents would.

Excellent article - I hadn't seen that before.

Hello Kim, nice to see you back after all this time - I still have your old FA43 in my kitbag.

My K2 was "truly" stiff when I bought it and could only be moved using both hands and a lot of swearing. Eventually I sat down for half an hour and just rotated it both ways until it started to free up - now it fits in the "awkward" category (which is still a huge improvement). Fortunately I have a box of ISO200 film to work through so the last few rolls have seen it just sit where it is, the rest of the camera works like a dream so it's a small price to pay.

Well I don't have the DA15 but I successfully use Takumar caps on my DA35, FA77 (both sliding hoods) and FA43 (fixed hood) - just to avoid losing/damaging the originals. What size is the supplied cap?

Any 49mm push on / clip on cap will work. Try eBay for a Takumar cap if you want something stylish

Each time you double the focal length you halve the field of view; so a 100mm lens shows half of what a 50mm lens shows, a 200mm lens shows half of what a 100mm lens shows, a 400mm lens shows half of what a 200mm lens shows, etc.

In this case a 400mm lens will show three quarters (300/400) of what a 300mm lens will show in terms of field of view, so crop 25% off your 300mm shots to get a comparison.

In other words, yes there's a difference but it's probably not as significant as you might think.