Hi Mike,

The screen on mine (at default settings) is definitely usable with sun (full 'May' Manchester sun) on the screen. Reflections of me on the screen (very rare) are a little bit more of a problem, but a slight tilt of the screen usually improves it.

You should find that the screen is brighter for about a second when you half-depress the shutter release, which helps. You need to keep finger marks off the screen though (I don't use a screen protector).

John.

I have two 'Made in Japan' 283's, one of them puts 273v (two seven three) across the contacts, the other only 13v. The 273v one has red tape on it for ID and I only use it on a cheap optical slave. I only use the 13v one on manual focus 35mm SLRs or medium format film cameras.

Still an incredibly versatile flash system - I have the same remote sensor cord and a couple of vari-power modules somewhere.

Hi Bjørn,

The first one is very representative of my experience with Velvia with the contrast between orange & blue. I found even slight under-exposure saturates the contrast between them. I now prefer Provia 100F for my 120 shots. I haven't used it a lot for landscapes, so I've not really noticed how it represents greens.

Back when Velvia (RVP) was introduced, a lot of photographers preferred to expose it at EI40, but this depends a lot on your metering technique, whether you have 'stepless' shutter speeds and half stop apertures available.

John.

I have the Pentax DA17-70/4 and haven't had any problems. As a standard/travel lens it's just about wide/fast/long enough - but I might consider an 18-135 today - mainly for the WR.

I haven't used any of the lenses with the DC motor, but when I bought the 17-70 the SDM felt like a huge improvement over the screw-drive zooms I've used before.

To get the most out of the new camera I really feel you need to use its native lenses. It will be more compact and work much better than using an adapter + DSLR lens. Otherwise you may as well just use a DSLR and have an SLR finder.

I thought about an Xpro-1 long and hard, in the end I spent about the same as a body would cost on a P67 outfit (2x bodies, 2x prisms & 45, 75, 165 & 200mm lenses).

It's easy to say in hindsight that you should have checked the warranty at the time of purchase, but as I've bought almost all of my new gear from a local retailer (Wilkinson Cameras) that has given me a 3 year warranty on almost everything (most recently my MX-1), I'd just assume all good retailers would do the same.

The only time I've needed a Pentax repair (broken zoom switch on an FA28-80 PZ lens well outside the first 12 months) they arranged the repair without any problems.

Social networking sites can have a big impact in some areas of pro photography, for example: link

Some really good photos there, I prefer the atmospheric ones generally to the more abstract ones.

I've spent more time with my P67 recently but also have a (non-Pentax) 645 which I've started to use again. The 645 format is really versatile and capable of capturing almost anything. It offers good film economy and in most cases it is much more efficient than shooting 6x6.

A link to my 645 shots on flickr: link

I have a Pentax branded 8Mb CF card that came with my EI-2000 (not for sale). I later replaced it at enormous cost for a whopping 128Mb one...

These days I think that the technical aspects are easily covered by a million websites (picking the right one would be a challenge).

The most useful books I have are:
1) 'The Image' by Michael Freeman - essentially about composition from my film days - possibly much of it re-published in 'The Photographers Eye' by the same author.

2) 'The Black & White Handbook' by Roger Hicks & Frances Schultz - unashamedly about B&W film and traditional darkroom techniques.

3) 'The Endurance' by Caroline Alexander (Frank Hurley's photos of Shackelton's ill-fated expedition) - not a 'how to' book but a great example of great photography in arduous conditions, the simplest gear and only a few rolls of film.