I spent all today using the 60-250mm at Martin Mere and the focus locked on quickly and positively. Out of 250 shots, just two were out of focus.

I'm no expert at flying birds, but one of my first successes came today and I'll post in in the Gallery shortly.

Although I've still got to decide whether or not i can afford to keep this lens, and have yet to compare it to the 300mm f4, it proved to be a very effective tool.

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You're clearly getting there!

Exposure will always be hit and miss as there's no way of knowing how much IR light is present. However, it's always been the same, so I guess there's always going to be an element of surprise when you look at the results.

Ian, if that's what you want a bridge camera for then don't. They are far too slow in response time and the planes will be long gone.

Bridge cameras are best for static subjects.

I think the 55mm f1.4 needs to be looked at as a replacement in digital terms for an 85mm f1.4 portrait lens. These were never cheap, and in this context the price looks about right.

Don't underestimate Windows Security Essentials, also free and quite capable.

AVG used to be good but did start to slow things down quite a bit.

Norton was IMHO horrible....

I might be looking at the Q with keen interest, but no lens or body purchases are planned.

This has nothing to do with the purchase of pentax, which makes no difference to whatever I plan to do.

A mystery then I'm afraid. It does work for me, so what is different I can't guess. I'm using Windows 7 and IE8 so maybe you could look at your system and browser and see if there's something there that's causing the problem?

When you select the files you can use Shift and click on the first and last file in a sequence. If you use Ctrl and hold the key down you can select any number of files, whether they are in sequence or not.

It was indeed a convenient lens (a) because 2 inch lenses already existed and (b) it was relatively easy to make them good enough for small formats.

This doesn't change the observation though that something around 50mm on film is about right to record the world as we see it. 43mm technically is standard, in practice anything from 40mm to 58mm was used.

My preference was for the 55mm standard lens, so the 35mm (53.5mm equivalent) comes tolerably close for me. It is a matter of taste and photographic style though.