Amazon can be a good place to buy cameras and lenses. My 43mm came from Amazon at £100 less than anywhere else was selling it.

In many ways it's of limited use to use a lightweight compact tripod. They just don't keep the camera stable. A strong Leica-style table top tripod can be used on the tops of walls, to clamp up against a tree and can be quite useful. A monopod helps some people and is not too onerous to carry. The Gorilla-Pod I have heard good things about but I've no direct experience of it. Maybe a bean bag can be helpful as well.

Otherwise, use SR, don't be afraid to up the ISO if the light is failing and keep as stable as you can by utilising what is around you. There is nothing more stable than say placing the camera on top of a solid wall as you fire the shutter.

I never carry tripods out into walking (or biking) territory.

I think you have to go to your Profile to tie the two things together.

It's Item Number 300285432057

Here's an item I'm currently offering on eBay:
[IMG]http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff250/johnriley1uk/001-AP-05-11-1975.jpg[/IMG]
What a fascinating read it is as well. 218 pages, over twice the thickness of the current magazine, and an unbelievable mass of sdvertisments and choice. The products listed are incredible, just think of all those manufacturers who are long gone - Agfa, Topcon, Fujica, Hanimex, Mamiya, Polaroid, Yashica, Bolex, Vivitar, Pentacon, Photax, Soligor, Kowa...and that was just looking at a handful of pages.

The most advertised camera marque? Asahi Pentax.

And how about all those dealers? Wallace Heaton, Dixons, Dollonds, TeleTape, Brody and Hicks, Vic Odden's, Photomarkets, Derek Gardner, Reids, etc......

Now we have low prices, little choice and have to wait for the new products. Progress?

It's in the public view, but your images remain your copyright.

No I'm not sure about 99% either, but whatever the figure the majority of buyers will not be enthusuasts like we are. Otherwise sales of Pentax DSLRs would be very low indeed!

This sort of procedure goes back over thirty years to when Nikon users had to set their lenses to f5.6 before mounting them and then rotate them from largest to smallest aperture to set the meter to the lens. The meter even had an external pin for this. A very unelegant design.

I think most of the points you raise are valid in the sense that these things could be done, but Pentax engineers have future development on their mind, not putting in features that 99% of users would find quite mystifying.

As it stands we can use very old lenses if we want to, which is a bonus indeed.

Courtesy and common sense will answer this. If in doubt ask the photographer as sometimes people post things but only want glowing approval, most times people who ask for opinions mean it!

WE had some Jessops SD cards that would not fir properly and they were definitely thicker than normal. They went straight back for exchange because all that particular batch were too thick.

I'm sure other manufacturing defects happen, and of course fake cards are made by people who don't care about specifications.