No, no 18-135mm lenses for now. It would have added an extra £1000 to the bill and overlapped too much with our existing lenses.

Sadly, there has to be some realism to this process.

Lenses have different characters and some will appeal more than others. Sharpness is one factor, but that is very often related to contrast and the way that deceives the eye. Resolution is a different quality. Then there's differences in gradation. Even now, with computer design, different lenses do have different uses.

The classic example is after the Korean war, when Nikon cameras and lenses started finding their way to photojournalists. They had high contrast and very high sharpness, but actually lower resolution than the previously used German lenses.

A new taste for contast and sharpness soon evolved and swept photography.

That's pretty thin Tony!

Poor lenses are actually quite a low percentage, but what that percentage may be I doubt that anyone knows. In 40 years of buying lenses I haven't had a duff one yet.

New is better because you don't know how the lenses have been treated, how vigorously they have been cleaned or how often they have been dropped.

The order has now been placed with SRS - two Pentax K5 cameras with 18-55mm WR lenses plus two spare Pentax batteries. The delivery is expected tomorrow.

It will be sad to see the K10D and one K20D go because I liked the design, but the K5 will offer advantages for our available light wedding shots and also for our new interest in shooting wildlife.

We will keep one K20D as backup, but eventually it too may well be upgraded. It's a constant evolution with digital cameras, which I guess is good news for those who make them and those who sell them.

Two things strike me about this. One is that the background is very busy, so I'd be looking for a wider aperture if possible. The second is that the white petals are totally burnt out. The solution for the latter is different lighting. My favourite lighting for flowers is bright overcast, even lightly raining, and the flower will glow...full sunlight is just a little harsh.

Interesting, but in some cases what rules have been broken? I think this is a tough one to quantify.

Becky through a door of a derelict telephone box. Use it, don't abuse it.
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The f2 version is the budget lens. It's actually an excellent design and capable of first class results, but individual samples may vary. I've had good ones and poor ones. Of course what has happened to them over the years has a major effect as well.

Stopped down to f8 you should see little difference.

This crops up from time to time, but it's no big deal really is it? You can pay someone US$ or anything else from a PayPal account and obviously you sort out shipping first.

If you want to know something of a buyer, then ask.