I think if you're the member of a club it's very important not to go off on a tangent and do something that will upset your peers.

I would offer my services to the committee, assuming there is one, and leave them to accept or not. If not, their loss, but still their decision. If positive, then the administrator will have to go along with it.

At the end of the day, everyone should remain friends.

It's not the camera that makes a photograph, it's the photographer.

Yes it will work fully on your K-5.

The 75-300mm FAJ is actually quite a useful lens. It isn't as crisp as the newer 55-300mm DA, but it has a very attractive character. I used to use one for close up flower pictures and it was superb for this, allowing a usefully long working dustance even for close up shots of small blooms.

You won't encounter any problems and the crop factor of the DSLR will give a very powerful 35mm-equivalent view of 450mm.

Watch out for camera shake more than anything else, plus aerial haze in distant shots.

We've weakened and just ordered two from SRS. At that price, who could resist?

And just when I though lens buying was done with....

No, they are not. I shot a lot of listed buildings for English Heritage and they provided a handbook that covered what could and could not be done. If we are on publicly accessible land then we can basically shoot anything or anyone.

Having said that, common sense tells us that we don't try to photograph a 20 stone aggressive drunk who doesn't want to be photographed. Not without being able to run fast anyway....

Ian, they can be relatively expensive because they are sought after. An M series lens in mint condition might reach £100 and an A series one considerably more, if you can find one.

It's an interesting point though that whereas I prefer the 100mm to the 85mm, Jonathan-Mac prefers the 85mm. This is probably because different photographers have different styles and expect different results from their lenses.

Which you would prefer would be personal choice so if you do get a chance to use various lenses then that's a good thing to do. We need to find out for ourselves to some extent, although recommendations do help us along the way.

It's one of my favourite Pentax lenses, an excellent performer.

However, used on a DSLR it is less convenient than an A series lens as it has no "A" on the aperture ring. This means we have to meter manually. I find that a pain so would prefer the rather rarer SMC Pentax-A 100mm f2.8 instead. Same optical configuration but it works fully with the metering system.

In terms of fantastic photography and inspirational information, then the 1970s/1980s 17 volume set from Time Life is well worth having. It shouldn't be that expensive now and it gives you all the basic stuff, plus much more. OK no digital, but photography is still photography.

I'm not at all sure there's any realy evidence of this, is there? Teething troubles in new models don't last very long and the K-5 is not that new any more.

Who works for a company where Head Office keeps everyone informed as to what's going on?