Verichrome Pan film was the staple diet of inexpensive roll film cameras for decades. Black and white of course and still able to be developed today just like any other black and white film. Extended development and a defogging agent would be weise for very old films.

There is every possibility that you will get some images from the film.

I reviewed this for ePHOTOzine and was very, very impressed. It's a great camera and should be ideal for you.

This is one of the problems with buying cameras that are a bit out of the ordinary. There have been plenty of them, including high end compacts from Contax and Nikon and even Konica.

What spares will there be for these now, and they were not cheap.

I understand production of the NEX-5 has already stopped.

Thinking about what I wrote I wonder if Gareth you thought I was referring to your post, but I wasn't. I was actually thinking of all the stilted 1950s style portraits that used to be done in camera clubs. Judges would pontificate over the angle of the eyes, how many catchlights in the eyes and so on. Then open the latest magazine and the professionals were doing all the "wrong" things whilst getting published.

The point wasn't clear, so sorry for that, but it leaves me thinking as I said that I want natural and real images of people, not contrived following-the-rules bland pictures. Actually as I write I've just selected my image source for the new weekly competition, haven't I?

It's been done Don and was a total flop. Was it Chinon?

Most of us don't need any more than Photoshop Elements. The trouble is, for some of the stuff I do, there are just a couple of critical things missing.

However, I'm happily using CS2 for everything and don't find any need to upgrade to a later version.

The no photography bit annoyed me, but it lost all sense of being on this planet when it came to no notebooks...I notice on the website they refuse to refund if you go in with a camera and they want to take it from you later and they threaten they could call the police.

What an unfriendly and foolish base to start from.

Certainly portraits are one of the competition subjects that are most difficult, partly I think because it is so easy to fault details. The irony is that often published images show the same faults and no-one bats an eyelid.

I've made a couple of decisions on pictures of people. Firstly I'm preferring location shoots. Yes, I know there are then lots of competing background details, but I find the shots more interesting.

Secondly, it's natural light as far as possible, with maybe the slightest fill-in flash if that's necessary. All the above were natural light on a gloriously sunny day, but within the makeshift buildings of the museum. The light was fantastic.

Thirdly, and that's one more than a couple of things, programs like Portrait professional are out. I want pictures of real people, "warts and all..."

Pentax were going to use the same full size sensor as the original Contax DSLR. It's good they didn't because results from the Contax were poor and the price was very high.

Pentax have since gone the APS-C route with great success, so I'm not sure what point you are making?