It's difficult to tell as the prices of new kit are falling fast. I'm pretty sure I've seen these advertised new for less that £250, maybe even £225. I fully expect them to be around £199 before too long.

I'm not sure the *istDL is worth selling on that basis, because you end up almost giving it away. We usually recycle to family at low prices when we can.

If you really want to sell, how about eBay?

Hi, Roger, welcome to the forum.

For web and small prints the *istDS produces superb images. It's only at A3 size that the difference between 6 and 10 MP starts to be obvious. Although, to be fair, only when you view prints side by side.

Flowers at night can be fun to photograph and the results are very appealing.

We have the same problem here - great skies, shame about the rooftops.

Still, what can you do?

The easiest lens to make for the 35mm frame would be around 58mm.

Some of the early fast standard lenses were in fact 58mm. Then 55mm became the standard, but as the lens makers got better 50mm took over.

Correct, if that is what you intend you Save for Web, which is usually automatically a JPEG and then close the image, when it says "Do you want to save changes?" you say No, thus preserving the original JPEG as out of camera.

If on the other hand I am producing a full size image, then I create it to A3 and save as TIFF. A Web version can be made from this whenever required.

As soon as you save a file in JPEG you are compressing it and introducing JPEG artifacts.

I suggest that as soon as the original JPEG has been opened and changed in any way it should be saved thereon in a lossless format. This could be psd if the work is "in progress" or preferably TIFF which is universally readable.

Personally I think it is somewhat ironic to, say, shoot in RAW and then save as JPEG.

The way we have taught our members at ADAPS is always to save in a lossless format, and this is pretty universal as recommendations go. The exception, of course, is when we Save for Web, which has to be JPEG.

The original files are stored unchanged on the hard drive and on a back up CD.

Any manipulated files are saved in TIFF format.

The dedicated Pentax hoods are intended for just the one lens and are perfectly matched to that. I wouldn't expect any othe mmenufactrer's hood to fit.

The exception to this is Rollei and other TLRs (twin lens reflexes) where there are standard sizes described as Bayonet I, Bayonet II, Bayonet III, etc.

The reason is that I learned my lesson the hard way a long time ago, and reached the conclusion that it was cheaper in the long run to get the correct product for the purpose. There is also a pleasure in everything fitting and operating flawlessly both functionally and also in terms of aesthetics. I have bought lots of third party items and they have all been less satisfactory than the original manufacturer's stuff.

As regards the Samsung battery, we know the GX10 is a Pentax K10D, so the parts and accessories are one and the same. It is not often that we know this.

But just to clarify the point, I'm not pro-Pentax for the sake of it. I have actually used virtually every camera marque and have consluded that the most efficient for me has been the Pentax.

I have also used just about every type of camera ever made, deliberately so as an exercise. I was determined that I would be able to pick up anything from any era and be able to use it, be it a Kodak Folder, a TLR, a rangefinder Contax, a Nikon F5 or even a Pentax or anything else. This particular project has been very useful for lots of different camera club talks.