This is a common fault with the MX. I even had one that behaved like that from new.

If the frames ever overlap then it needs fixing, but if they only ever touch then you may well be OK to suffer the problem.

The only question mark is whether or not photo processing houses can cope with that without ruining some of your images by cutting the strips in unfortunate places. It was never a problem to me as I always had by own darkroom.

It looks like a one-off. As I've said before, we can have more than one competition.

Almost every compact digital camera will shoot video. Now all the new DSLRs are starting to do the same, developed alongside the introduction of LiveView.

These are features I don't need at present, but I'm quite happy for them to be there for those who do.

Prices will settle I'm sure. The K7 has an exciting professional specification and some very unique selling points, so it should be a major success for Pentax.

I would suspect that a low key introduction is partly to allow time for stocks to get into place. There's nothing worse than getting people excited and then being unable to supply. We tend to "jump the gun" here because we're a bit ahead of the game.

We've not long since upgraded to the K20D, so it will be a while before we go for the K7, but in time we will.

We buy two at a time these days, so waiting for the price to settle will be a Particularly Good Idea for us!

What a great forum we are!

I declined one of these for £200 at a camera fair, even though it looked like new, which is always very tempting.

It's gorgeous, but probably not of much pratical use.

Shim, whatever are you trying to use? Actually I can't help with batteries, but ask me about obsolete glass plates, flash bulbs or dark slides and I will be a bountiful and wondrous supplier of treasures beyong imagination!

Excellent is termed Premium on the K20D and merely relates to an even lower amount of JPEG compression. Best relates to the same that Best relates to in the K10D, so the nomenclature is logical, even if the English is technically flawed.

Shim, I wouldn't worry about batteries becoming obsolete. We can still get batteries for cameras over 40 years old, even though some early Yashica models are getting a bit tricky. There are some medical devices using the most obscure batteries and even these are still around some 30 tears on.

The new Pentax battery will no doubt become as common as the current one, given time.

We shoot video on compact cameras at parties, but not seriously. I did try cine years ago, but unless you want to make movies then it seems uninteresting to play at it.