If you can get a set of the 17 volume Time Life series on photography that is a wonderful resource of inspiration that covers from the 1800s to the 1970s. Although much of the technical stuff may be dated to that period, there is a lot of basic material that is timeless. It would be worth it for the images alone.

Modern photographic magazines rely too much on snazzy design and don't have enough real content IMHO. They tend to be superficial in approach and are full of errors, presumably because of time pressures as well as sometimes writers with a lack of detail knowledge.

When Jack Schofield edited Photo Technique there was far more detail and real information. Rather than an Another Publication "Lenses" supplement that briefly mentions a few lenses we would have an entire issue dealing with every wide angle lens in existence. Then an entire issue on telephoto lenses. Then an entire issue on the Magnum agency. There were even issues with a huge page increase where the extra section was a magazine-within-a-magazine dedicated to a manufacturer. I recall the Rollei one, full of interesting stuff old and new.

However, Another Publication continues and PT is long gone.

Yes, always buy the 18-55mm kit lens as it is surprisingly good for a very low price.

The K-r is a wonderful camera and if it had the K-5 sensor and was weather resistant I might have gone for that instead of the K-5. However, if it had those features it might well be a K-5 price.

The idea of follow no rules though is not IMHO the right approach. It's only when you understand what the "rules" are that you can break them intentionally to your advantage. Otherwise you are relying on your own vision skills without any guidance.

Smeggypant's images in general, and I hope he will forgive me for using him as an example, do not break the rules, but in fact make highly intelligent use of the rules. They are bold and visually rich, but show me the ones that don't adhere to good principles of composition.

The rules were created after srtists spent many years examining the most favoured paintings of the masters. Why did they work? What made some appeal far more than others? They were found to often fit into certain patterns and these became the rules of composition. It wasn't random.

However, there are other rules that can freely be broken, such as perhaps someone saying, "This isn't a suitable subject for monochrome." To which I would suggest that if done properly and with good reason, that statement is almost always wrong. Yet sometimes we take these things on board without questioning them.

Always question, but don't discard the basic rules of photography unless there's a good reason.

If you are using centre point focus then the camera can't focus on something else instead, but of course it can fail to focus. I'm wondering though why you are trying to focus on skin when it's the eye that needs focusing on?

Also, it would have to be very dark indeed for the camera to fail to focus, so why is it so dark?

In really dark conditions if I want an AF lock I use an LED torch to illuminate the focus target. That works very well.

The simple answewr is don't. Instead, use a card reader, which is much more efficient and carries no risk of the camera batteries running out during a file transfer.

Card readers are not expensive.

I do recall that the original AP test of this lens was quite complimentary.

Ah, I see. That's where we disagree over exposure for digital. It is essential with a slide not to burn out the highlights. This is the opposite of a colour negative, where some over exposure can even be beneficial.

Noise is the enemy of digital and of course this is more present in dark areas, hence your assertation that we should move the histogram to the right. However, I am suggesting that we should in fact under expose if anything, not by much of course, but enough to ensure that detail is retained in the highlights.

Even with RAW capture you will not regain detail that is not there.

So, depending upon the camera's metering, just ensure that we do not blow out the highlights. The shadows may contain noise at higher ISO settings, but with the new K-r and K-5 cameras this is not really much of a problem.

The best practice IMHO is to expose as per a slide film, which is where we started these musings.

I'm not sure what you mean Stefan, slides are colour transparencies and I'm only talking about the technical approach to shooting the images compared to digital. Master one and you have mastered the other.

We're talking here about composition making the most of the whole frame, which is a lesson in discipline. We are also talking about learning not to over expose the highlights, which is the death of any slide or digital image. A slide in these respects uses very similar techniques to a sensor.