What's interesting is that a lot of discussion tends to be about the theory, often from those who have already made up their minds. The practice is what it is and as digital photography changes at a fantastic pace I would keep trying alternative techniques. What is thought impossible becomes possible.

Thank you Mike.

The brightness of the scene is raised when the light falls, seems duller in bright light so the eye will adapt and there's no way an EVF could be an accurate exposure guide. I'm pretty sure that instruction books actually say don't try to judge exposure from the screen.

No Don, I haven't. The problem with still cameras is that we don't have good EVFs. Maybe it's a problem of size?

It sounds like some TLC is needed. Disk Cleanup? Defragment?

Have you purged the cache in Photoshop? Have you allocated a scratch disk that actually has enough free space on it?

There are 77 seals in the K-7 body, so I wonder if there's a misprint or whether it actually is 77 segment metering?

Welcome aboard, we'll be delighted to see your images.

The trouble is the EVFs I've seen so far are dreadful. The Sony A33/A55 EVF is better, but still not really good. I think it's a very long way from being able to judge either exposure or white balance.

I have used every type of camera that you could imagine, but nothing over 10" x 8", and that was in itself a project that ran over many years.

When I said that a plate camera would be difficult, it would to the new digital photographer. Many excellent photographers know nothing about photography, but they do kinow how to use the various possibiloities of a compact camera.

My 8-year-old Grandaughter is a real whizz with her Pentax T30 and her special effects. But she would be mystified by a 10" x 8" Gandolfi....

I'm delighted though to hear some of your history and that you're enjoying your photography on many different levels.

There is one huge disadvantage to your K-5 of course - you can't make it yourself like you could make a large format camera.

Or maybe SRS did...I was just thinking that when we as a family went recently to the South Lakes Wild Animal Park, we were sporting a vast array of Pentax cameras and lenses.

In our group, which must have looked like a Pentax User meeting, there were two K-5, one K-x, one K10D and one K20D plus our lenses and backup compacts, which totalled an amazing four I-10s and a W90....

A formidable array!