Auto in the context of extension tubes means they convey the auto stop-down on lenses. This is a mechanical coupling and quite different to the electronic contacts that are desireable.

It's much better to know where everyone is. Great idea.

This is obviously a Treant, which tells you that my refernce source is more Gygaxian that Middle Earth...

It could have been a good "mysterious" competition entry with a little work in Photoshop.

It depends what you call "next to nothing" as I've seen a few going for over £40.00

Even the K and M series lenses, not quite as useful on digital, have been in the high £30s and selling every time.

Correct, minimal rules, just enough to run things. Look at the Sticky "Rules and Guidance" at the top of the section!

There's an interesting idea. That's what I call lateral thinking...

Nice shot, but it would be much easier to view if you restricted it to 1000 pixels. As it is some of the effect is lost by having to scroll the image from side to side.

Thanks. The first SLR with autofocus is a moot point because several manufacturers were at it simultaneously. It's generally regarded that Minolta were the first to launch satisfactorily with in-camera AF.

The inbuilt light meter was first put in by Topcon I believe. The Pentax Spotmatic was the first major success in this and also the first success in Aperture Priority with the ES. They were all amazed that it worked in the photographic press. In those days they were outselling most and were the first choice along with Nikon.

Canon came up on the outside, so to speak, by lowering production costs with the use of mass manufacturing techniques and plastics. Some of these cameras are dreadful IMHO, such as the phenomenally successful AE-1 and its later derivatives. I wouldn't thank you for one...

Pentax IMO lost their path with the big cameras of the early AF era. They were very un-Pentax like to me, but they were well made.

Where they really have fallen down is in telling the world how good they are. In other words, marketing, which I think has been abysmal.

However, we shouldn't confuse that with the quality and innovation in the products, which is all there.

By contrast Olympus did very well with cameras that had simple shutters, CdS meters, no multicoating, all because of advertising. That's the OM series. During this same period, Pentax had SMC lenses, silver coated pentaprisms, GPD metering, new compact shutter designs and they did very well too. The photographic press were not behind them even then in the same way.

It's a conspiracy...

They do? I thought the K10D and K20D were pretty outstanding anyway. What sort of things do you mean?

:

Not this tower, but certainly another tower.