I've just bought two, so yes, it is worth buying. Excellent camera that hits the spot in every respect.

The Dell 2209WA is what we use and it has that excellent relaxed feel to it that is shared by the really expensive IPS monitors. It's better than my CRTs ever were, so that's pretty good.

Many flat screen monitors are far too harsh for using Photoshop.

That's good advice Matt. A single desk lamp and reflector can be enough to make professional portraits.

Thyere are plenty of books on portraiture to help the beginner and many of them will show sample lighting set-ups as well.

The idea of hiring a studio to have a go is also excellent.

How about joining a camera club and trying out their portrait nights?

And better in some respects, but unfortunately relatively rare.

Well the last comment I have on the subject will be quoting Photo Technique who stated quite clearly that the Nikon 50mm f4 Micro lens out resolved probably any other lens in existence and was probably the sharpest 35mm format lens. They were staggered by its performance.

However, that's only part of the story of lenses. I find your references slightly bizarre, but that's neither here nor there as I don't think you will change your mind.

I think the membership has enough information now to make up their own minds.

I can't see any supporting links or references? I have the mass of literature from a lifetime to support what I'm saying. A proper test comparing lenses at the same time in some standardised way that satisfies critical experimental procedures.

Interesting, but overly suspicious perhaps. We do know that the 135mm lens arose because it was the longest length that could be reliably used on a Leica rangefinder camera.

Rather than medium and larger formats, 35mm lenses atrted from movie focal lengths, sice they were using 35mm movie stock.

Later, 6x6cm cameras arose and these were considered "miniature" formats.

How times have changed.

I think you're being quite harsh really, because beginners need guidance and if they are to get nice, natural portraits then an 85mm - 120mm lens will be about right. It's not just pulled out of a hat and never revisited again. That's on film of course and using a 35mm camera. The DSLR version would be a 55mm f1.4 and we have a very nice Pentax one that's perfect for the job.

We have to know the rules to break them, and to understand where the "rule" comes from in the first place. Why do you think manufacturers all made 85mm lenses of wide aperture? Because it was found to be a pleasing length for portraiture.

Now if you want to break the rules that's fine, but you still need to understand why you are doing it and to produce something that justifies the different approach. If everyone used a 17mm lens for portraits we'd get fed up of that pretty quickly I suspect.

It's just guidance in that 85mm lenses are the right focal length for portraiture and also tend to have a nice wide aperture so the subject can be isolated against the background. In addition, many are designed to be softer wide open to enhance delicate portraits.

We know you can use any lens for anything, but the norm does help people starting out. There's plenty of time later on for fisheye portraits and 1000mm landcapes.

OK, then why not prove your claim? So far this is all conjecture and I'm afraid many years of technical information don't agree with you...but you could convince us if you produce the work that proves your point.