Better to have it right than have it cheap.

I started out with a Pentax SP1000 with 55mm f2 lens and worked through ME Super, MX, LX, Super A, skipped a few models till MZ5, MZ3 and then the DSLRs.

My favourite is actually the K10D which is a superb camera that does its job and does it exceptionally well.

According to Martin Eveninh's books, preparing CMYK conversions for printing in magazines and books (I'm guessing what the OP wants to do this for) is a very specialised field and best left to the experts.

The upshot is that generally submissions are made in RGB and the printers do the conversion to suit their own system.

Now whether it's by luck, or whether Pete and the team work miracles or the printers do, when I send in stuff to Pentax User the result on the printed page is incredibly close to what I see on my monitor. In fact, it looks the same. I send sRGB files sized to A3-ish (depending on aspect ratio) and at 300ppi.

Happens all the time, when crocodiles swallow Pentax 645 or 67 wielding photographers, sometimes without even chewing. Obviously these poor creatures have to be protected...

Whatever you convert the file to (CMYK or Lab)you'll still view it as RGB as monitors are RGB devices. I can never see a difference in the image, whatever it is saved in.

Photoshop 7 will certainly do the job though, and I mention that in particular as you might be able to pick it up at a very low price. I think probably earlier versions will also do this, but 7 I still use and it certainly does what you need.

We don't have any weather sealed lenses yet, but with some care over keeping the lenses as dry as possible we've been out and about in all weathers. The camera body has been absolutely fine and I don't hesitate to take it out into the rain.

Please keep your discussion thread in the Competitions section, to avoid the subject being spread all over the forum and causing confusion.

I've made your rules post a sticky.

We use an Epson 1290s which produces very nice A3 prints.

Normally save as 8 bit TIFF. 16 bit prevents you from using quite a few features within PS7.

JPEG is a "lossy" format, so the non-lossy TIFF is indeed preferable.

After a file is opened and worked on I always re-save as a TIFF.