If you can find a Pentax 135mm it will be much better. Unfortunately they have been selling for Silly Money on eBay recently.

The f3.5 lens is a totally different lens from a different manufacturer and is probably a better lens than the f2.8 one.

I've actually used one of these on film, a very, very long time ago. As I recall it was OK without being startling, but a bit on the bluish side as far as colour balance goes. The aperture ring and focusing ring work the opposiye way round to Pentax which was a bit of a nuiscance.

Yes, friendly is the word.

If we stick to talking photography we won't go far wrong. Just bear in mind that not everyone will be a native English speaker either so as long as we all understand each other there shouldn't be a problem.

It might be interesting to have a few of us post two images - a very early one and a current one, just to show how far we have progressed since our first tentative efforts.

When I get a moment I'll have a look in my early archive and see what I might dare to show!

Welcome to the forum! I'll look forward to seeing lots of posts and perhaps some images?

Just to take up the point though of whether or not people "have" or "don't have" an eye for images, my experience is that some definitely do.

Down at the club lots of new members come through and over the years it's apparent that the male ones have loads of technical knowledge but in general have to work at the aesthetics a bit. The female ones in general don't worry too much about the technicalities but definitely have a keen eye for composition and what generally makes a great picture. I stress again in general beacuse there are also many notable exceptions to this.

One exception was H---- who I persuaded to enter the year's competitions as I thought he'd do well and would put in some interesting images. Well he just won everything, with apparently no effort whatsoever. Classic shot after classic shot....

The rest of us mere mortals have to work harder than that!

The smaller the f number, the wider the aperture and the faster the lens.

A 50mm lens with a 25mm diameter is f2. A 100mm lens with 25mm diameter would be f4.

This explains why many zoom lenses have variable apertures. The glass diameter stays the same, so everything else being equal as the lens zooms the f number must change.

In the days before multi-coating a good deal of light was lost in a lens because of internal reflections. This gave rise to the T number (transmission) for the purposes of exposure calculation. The T number gave the actual transmission of light. It has not been used for many years.

I would be very wary of buying any lens that had such a serious fault, plus the probability that someone with limited knowledge has had the lens open and removed some of the mechanism.

There are plenty of mint, intact lenses around at very reasonable prices.

This is one of the great strengths of the format. The new judge can set a challenging and thought provoking subject and the entrants can totally exceed every expectation.

Of course it's also good to have simpler tasks from time to time as well as it is for fun as well as being a challenge.

I do contribute to a forum where the images are selected by vote and the end of the week and to be honest it's a bit of a damp squib. Also some people start to vote tactically and even vote for themselves, which is not good. The other downside is that not everyone votes on every image, so the ratings can be very skewed.

I feel our format is about right and it certainly brings up some great ideas, followed by some great debate.

Time for your big moment Gully!

Well done all.