We used to enjoy camera fairs, but eventually you only get to see the same old stuff and very little new or of worth. Some fairs can be better, but in general the quality of goods is pretty awful and I feel i get much better stuff on eBay. (With careful buying, of course...)

As regards the sellers, I guess they see the same buyers time after time, always looking, seldom buying.....

To answer the question about water and metal. The light coming from the water is polarised so it can be filtered out my rotating the polariser. The light from a metal surface is not polarised so there is no effect.

The same is true of a shot into the sun. No polarisation, so no effect.

It does depend very much on the subject, so a lanscape with blue sky should show a marked effect, but a shot into the sun would not. As Matt says, the light should be coming in at an angle of 45 degrees for maximum effect.

Likewise, the polariser will remove reflections from water, but not from metal surfaces.

There are so many different effects that can be realised with night photography. But the only way forward is to practice and practice and take notes so you know what you have done. There are also many books that will offer ideas and useful information - maybe a trip to the local library would be helpful.

Have fun!

True...

Rightly or wrongly, we always buy branded goods in the belief that they will be made to better standards.

When you compare the nicely made pentax battery in my new A20 with the unbranded item that I saw someone take out of a Rollei compact then there is indeed a difference to be seen. The unbranded battery didn't even fit properly and had to be teased into position.

Another friend had a Canon G5 and had to prise the CF card out with the blade of a knife...

We spend a lot of money on our well made Pentax kit and I really think quality is the way to go for all the accessories.

Cheap is rarely cost-effective.

CF cards can also be handy to transfer data from one computer to another, as, to be fair, any flash memory can be.

Well we don't know for sure, but gut feeling does indeed suggest SD. If it turned out to be CF or even dual sockets for CF and SD we would be surprised, but nothing is impossible!

Dust can get into lenses as they are not air tight (if they were we wouldn't be able to focus and zoom because of the vacuum).

A small amount of dust is merely annoying and not too significant. It would take a fair bit to degrade the image significantly.

We probably have to define what we mean by superiority. I think digital is very superior in terms of crisp, clean images. Film has a different quality altogether, not worse and not better but different.