I think this can be quite a dangerous argument, as it can be used to justify more and more intrusion into the lives of oridinary, law abiding citizens. Then we look back in horror at how much individual freedom has been lost over the years. Those who are educated into the new system are of course largely oblivious to what they have lost.

We need to object lest our lives be constantly pried into at every level, until no privacy and personal space remain.

At a stroke they made all 200 assistant managers and warehouse mangers redundant, thus ripping the centre out of the expertise of many branches.

The MZ-5 was the first Pentax camera that motivated me to buy after the MX and ME Super.

I'm not singling out anyone, let's just move on.

Let's move back to the discussion please, otherwise we'll get stuck on who gets the last word in.

It should be possible to discuss this without the personal stuff. Otherwise we end up with taboo subjects, which is quite unnecessary.

In this maze, someone asked whether we needed AF at all. That one is easy - no we don't need AF, but on the other hand it is quite handy for most of the time.

I was just hoping for a few views on whether this was an issue in reality, so it doesn't need to get personal. Stick with the facts, even the facts as we see them, and it should be a calm enough disucssion!

There will always be contrary views on most subjects.

The K20D will count continuously if you set it to, so all you need to do is use smaller cards, one per day when away, and keep them numbered in order. When transferring them to the PC just rename each folder accordingly.

001 K20D Rivington 17 02 2010

Would do very nicely for the first in a sequence. Then:

002 K20D Southport 18 02 2010

for example, and so on.

The lens mount certainly helps I'm sure. We can use almost any Pentax lens we find.

Another factor might be design - the Pentax cameras are elegantly simple to operate, with few pitfalls that could damage the camera. The Canon is a mass of mysterious switches and interlocks and needs the instruction book to get it right.

In terms of quality the two Canon zooms are flashy in a Chinon sort of way and the engraving is nowhere near the standard of say an M or A series lens. I've no doubt the performance will be very good though.

Another interesting thing is that two of three Tamron lenses from the same package are riddled with fungus, whereas the Canon and Pentax ones are not. They were in the same bag as well, so maybe Tamron lenses of the 1970s - 1980s are particularly vulnerable.

I think this is quite heartening for those investing in Pentax kit, as we do tend to buy and sell over the years...

I have the MX on eBay at the moment and also a Canon A1 with f1.4 lens and power winder. Both items starting at the ubiquitous £20.00.

What I find interesting, apart from the presence or absence of bids, is that the MX has had 118 views and the Canon has had just 18. The long term prosepcts of the two marques in terms of resale value seem very clearly signposted by this.

I have used them, but via amazon.co.uk - the goods came from the UK within a few days.