Even with the SMC coating, the fewer the elements the less flare there will be, so a simpler telephoto of more limited aperture could be better optically.

I think I read somewhere that you can order the battery from Pentax. Why not give them a call and check?

The very best Image Stabiliser Device is called a.......tripod.....

Interesting, it happened when i posted that last message, but as you can see the post was successful anyway.

Got it once, but not again. I've noticed a few repeated posts, but that could be human error.

The orange tinge could be the light source, a shift in the colour of the slide, or more likely a combination of both.

There is no orange mask on slides, which are intended for direct viewing or projection. If you copy colour negatives, you will need to reverse the tones and colours as well as dealing with the orange mask colour.

A negative/slide scanner is much easier!

If I were doing this I would use my neg/slide scanner and switch on the Digital Ice to remove any or most of the dust marks. However, the method you have chosen is perfectly viable, although much easier with larger format originals.

50 year old Ektachrome slides will show a marked colour shift, but I have had quite a bit of success using "Auto Colour" in PS7, which can often do the trick. If not, some tweaking of the colour balance will help a lot. I wonder if you adjusted your camera white balance because the results look rather greenish, as fluorescent tubes do.

The technique will be to fix down the slide so it is flat, make sure the camera back is absolutely parrallel to the slide, get the white balance as close as possible, focus very carefully indeed (manually), use a small aperture (tripod essential) and take the pictures in a pitch black room to avoid relections.

It should be possible to make excellent copies, but it will be a slow painstaking process, and rather you than me!

Maybe there's some variation in performance. Sue and I both use the 18-55 lens and find it sharp and crisp as long as it's stopped down. Wide open it is a little soft, but then so are many lenses.

The 24-90 is better.

I have used the MZ5, MZ5n and currently use the MZ3. All these are fine and are IMHO the superior bodies in the MZ range.

I especially like the fact that they utilize a conventional shutter speed dial.

All the C-41 type B&W films end up as clouds of dye to form the image, so all suffer from the same defects so far as I see it anyway.

If you want real bite and brilliance I recommend Tri-X in FX-39, or a similar acutance developer. For finer grain Plus-X.

For portraiture I would use Kodak T-Max 100, also in FX-39. Very smooth.