Thanks to everyone for all the offers. I've filled most of the gaps now, but if there are any still missing I'll be in touch.

All help and all offers of help have been much appreciated.

Is that as far as anyone can stagger under the load of a full Pentax kit?

Whwn I saw this I didn't realise just where it was, but it's not too bad from Manchester.

We're supposed to be doing Fountains by Night (Fountains Abbey) that night, but if it becomes possible we just might join you for the morning. It would be good to meet some of our fellow Pentax Users!

It means the same as what I said in my first post above, that is, that the A setting on the aperture ring enables all the lens functions to be used properly with the DSLRs. They've just put it in a more technical way. The last three words of their statement are spurious - nothing to do with the issue in hand!

If you are going to buy a manual focus lens it would be more convenient if you found an A series lens, with an "A" on the aperture ring. This enables the lens to function properly with the DSLRs. They will be designated SMC Pentax-A.

Either that or any of the autofocus lenses. These fetch quite high prices these days as they are much in demand, but they are all excellent lenses. They will be designated SMC Pentax-F or SMC Pentax-FA.

There is also a new digital lens the SMC Pentax-DA 55mm f1.4.

There have been recent repositionings of the new Pentax prices, so you may find things are no longer as bad as people first thought.

There are plenty of well priced Pentax lenses out there, so any buyer should really research that for themselves.

I know landscape photographers who still shoot on 5x4 inch film, so professional photography has many different aspects.

I'm sure any discernable difference between marques at DSLR level will be more down to technique than anything else.

It's already been posted elsewhere, so to avoid a duplicated thread starting I'll lock this one.

You can come back and chat with pleasure, bearing in mind that the Your Photos forum is for Pentax related pictures to show what people's kit can do. No other marques I'm afraid, that's best for a non-specific forum such as the sister site to this one, ePHOTOzine.

Best to let us have your EPZ user name and we can go and look and comment on your images there.

Good luck!

Ouch, the price kills it.....