There are some very interesting bits of translation in the manuals. Most is OK, but sometimes I think if I didn't already know what they were saying then I wouldn't understand a word of it.

Many new digital photographers have no photographic background, so a bit of reading on photo basics would be very helpful. Understanding shutter speeds, apertures, depth of field and so on will make life easier.

Set everything on fully auto, green mode or whatever else it's called, will deliver results for everyone though for much of the time. It depends what you want ot achieve.

Yes, the way funds are frozen and potentially taken back is a difficulty. It's particularly galling when the trouble is caused by zero feedback buyers who either have no clue what they are doing, or are very clever and want something for nothing and know how to get it.

Still it doesn't stop me from using eBay either, and it has been of immensly more benefit to me than disadvantage.

The point I was making was not directed at anyone in particular, more of a generalised comment.

eBay certainly seems to be contentious as an issue, but in the end it does afford us the mechanism to sell to a very very wide audience, and to buy things that would otherwise be almost impossible to find.

Rollei and Zeiss Ikon made square format SLRs for the 126 Cartrdige format (24x24mm) and they did look rather bulky and strange. I would suspect a DSLR based upon a similar format would end up equally "boxy" in appearance.

The whole world is going "wide screen" and it's what the public are now getting used to, so I would be interested to know if some research has been done on the acceptability of a square format camera.

My suspicion is that it would be rather unpopular, but would have a very small serious amateur following.

People don't have to. The counter argument would be that if people didn't circumvent the rules in this way then charges would not need to be so high.

The one I like is when someone wrote to Photo Technique and ended "You should see what a sparrow can do to a jet engine." They suggested that if he was ecologically conscious he should have been saying, "You should see what a jet engine can do to a sparrow."

It's a moral issue as well as anything else, and there we must all find the answer that suits us personally.

Against eBay rules to do that and it also means there is no buyer or seller protection, so you're on your own if things go wrong.

When I get requests like that I always refuse.

The Super A received the award and the Program A is a slightly reduced spec version of it.

The thought of the 645D is so tempting...and I'll bet the price is just too high to be a comfotable purchase, or even an uncomfortable one.

This is interesting as I've never used the camera screen to check focus. I use the viewfinder to see if it has snapped into focus at the correct point.

I use the screen as a quick check for closed eyes on portraits and maybe to see if the composition is right.

I've never found camera screens good enough to check sharpness. 230,000 dots (often incorrectly stated as pixels) isn't really enough. There are some 900,000+ dot screens now that offer some promise.

We have the options of DSLR in the traditional 35mm sense, Bridge cameras, Micro 4/3, compacts, medium format digital, large format digital, scanning digital, camera phones.....

How about a Rolleiflex 2.8GD 6x6cm digital TLR....not yet, but I'll bet someone has thought of it.

viewfinder, in what direction would you move on the design?