Wider angle than 77mm, and probably more appropriate for the job in hand.

31mm is more of a standard lens on APS-C.

If you want a fast wide angle 31mm f1.8 Limited seems to do the job.

Have another look at the full lens range as you seem to be unaware of what's there.

www.srsmicrosystems.co.uk

OK, you can't get an f1.2 lens currently, but f1.4 is within a fraction of a stop and the 55mm f1.4 gives you the same field of view as the 85mm on full frame. You can also set the EV steps to 1, 0.5 or 1/3 intervals as well.

So the only thing not available is a whisker of a stop of lens speed. Don't forget even at f1.4 there is virtually no DOF, so you're not missing much.

In addition, the Limited lenses are probably the best you can buy.

IMHO you don't need more equipment. Going Pro is more a state of mind than the equipment.

Yes.

I have a very nice British camera in my collection - the MPP Microcord.

There still is a british photographic manufacturing industry, but these days it's more involved with process lenses and other highly specialised products.

We gave up trying to compete with the Germans and Japanese when import restrictions started being lifted in the late 1950s.

The most reasonable lens that you're likely to find, on the used market, is the Tokina 80-400mm.

It's pretty good, very compact but quite heavy.

Is this a colour or black and white image?

If black and white then a colour filter the same colour as the stain will remove it.

If colour, try looking at the individual colour channels in Photoshop. In RGB mode look in turn at the red green and blue channels to see if the colour of the stain disappears with one of them. If no luck, then convert to CMYK and look at the complementary cyan, magenta and yellow channels.

If a channel does the trick save it, discarding the others, and you'll have a stain free black and white image.

Have you formatted the card in the camera before using it?

Also, are you using a camera that will accept SDHC cards?

Some, not lots. There was at least a period of co-operation on some designs, certainly the 10-17mm, 12-24mm, 16-50mm and 50-135mm lenses.

However, that doesn't mean ownership, just working together on some projects. Likewise Pentax have worked with Tamron (28-200mm, 18-250mm) and maybe others as well.

Mac computers are very widely used by professional image makers and therefore you will find that Adobe Photoshop runs just fine on them.

Some would say better than on a PC.