Just like Nikon did recently. It's a sign of the times, but there are new lenses on the way, and the future of Pentax looks pretty exciting...

I wonder how many 15mm f3.5 lenses actually got sold in recent years, or how many of any of the more exotic offerings.

Very interesting indeed. I'm a great believer in doing our own lens testing so that the resulkts reflect what is possible with the equipment and techniques that we use.

Looking at the high resolution originals, what conclusions do you draw from your tests?

LEDs have moved along quite a bit. I use torches with LEDs and they are excellent.

In Dentistry, LEDs are used in light curing units, which set the white coloured filling materials. Some single LED lights can deliver over 1400 mW per square cm of energy. This is quite a considerable output, and with a life expectancy of 100,000 hours makes them the units of choice.

Of course we are talking about fairly small areas of illumunation, but if you want more light you just put in more LEDs!

You should be very wary about fitting Ricoh lenses to Pentax cameras - it could lead to an expensive repair for the reasons that Don gives.

Do you mean artifiial light?

Tungsten light is yellow/red compared to daylight and it fal;ls outside the range of the Auto White balance. So you need to set the white balance to Tungsten and all will be well.

It isn't a fault, just the colour of the light you are using.

In RAW you are using the raw output from the CCD without any corrections, so you set the white balance with the colour temperature slider. Which RAW converter are you using?

It might be an idea to stick with JPEG until you are more familiar with the processes involved?

Good service is only part of it, and it needs defining - it may mean different things to different people.

However, there is a price in that holding stocks, employing more/better informed people, using better carriers, all these things and more can increase costs.

Unfortunately, cut-price organisations can acquire a cut-price mentality where they are driven by profit motive alone. We all need to make a profit to live, but if we are service-driven, then with a sensible approach profits should automatically follow.

I could suggest examples of this but I won't mention names. I was in a cut-price store once and an irate customer came in and said "My camera hasn't arrived." The answer was "It's been sent. We don't insure parcels because of the cost. Tough luck." Fast service in one sense, but no quality of service when things went wrong. Oh, I don't deal with that supplier....

I think you were quite right to be prepared to pay a bit more for the assurance of the back up of a good retailer.

These days everything is so concentrated on Price that many people forget that a good deal is a good deal for both sides and includes the level of service and overall satisfaction. And good advice.

Overall, I would look for the best Value, which is not necessarily the lowest price.

Fantastic!

Let us know how you get on, and if you need any help just ask.

To complete the package, don't forget a card reader - much more convebient and efficient than attaching the camera to the PC.

Have fun with the new camera when it arrives!

As regards cards, my inclination is to use more smaller cards. Very occasionally a card can fail or become corrupted so it's far better to lose only onecard out of several rather than one that holds everything. I am now settling on 512MB cards, although I still use plenty of 256MB ones. These hold around 144 and 72 images respectively as best quality JPEGs, which is IMHO perfectly OK.