I don't find that the dye based images from C-41 monochrome films is a patch on the brilliance of the high silver content conventional films. That is, Plus-X, Tri-X, FP4, HP5 and so on. Even the T-grain films don't have that same pictorial quality, although they do have fine characteristics of their own.

Give me Tri-X developed in Paterson FX-39 every time.

Yes, I was looking at some of your contributions to the Pentax Club Magazine. No matter how much time goes by, no-one is safe!

There are no really in depth tests these days. Remember when shutter speeds were measured? When resolution tests were done on lenses? When American magazines half dismantled cameras to see how well they were designed?

Not any more....

I find the picture captions quite irritating as well. They often bear no real relationship to what is being shown. I think it was AP who said in the text of the *istDS review something like "Noise is well controlled at lower ISO settings and it is well controlled up to 3200 ISO" and the picture caption said "There is a lot of noise at higher ISO settings", totally different in its emphasis.

I suppose I shouldn't knock reviews too much as I did one of the *istDS for Pentax User, but at least it had no pretensions of being a technical test, more of a user appraisal.

The basis of the suggestion is that some reviewers have opined that there have been minor improvements to the image processing within the camera. It has been observed that the *istDL may be slightly better than the *istDS in this respect.

However, the statement needs some caution because we never know what the basis of a reviewer's opinions are, or indeed how skilled they are....

In time I would expect lower noise levels and possibly other improvements as a matter of course.

The *istD is a more professionally-aimed body, using CF cards and having some features miising on the *istDS2. However, I would probably choose the *istDS2 now, because things progress and it is likely that it will have the edge in image quality. I can certainly vouch for the quality of the *istDS, and I do like the larger screen.

All your lenses will work fine within their own limitations, but the A series ones will have better functionality, working with all exposure modes.

You might well look at the kit lens, the 18-55mm, which should be a very low cost with the body and is well worth having. Then the new range of compact DA digital lenses should provide most things you will need.

Don't forget the effective focal length of your lenses should be multiplied 1.5x, so a 50mm acts like a 75mm. This is because of the CCD being much smaller than a 35mm frame.

Above all, take lots of pictures and have a great time with your new camera!

Light has a "colour temperature". So the light of a summer day has a high value, measured in degrees Kelvin, say around 5000K. Indoors, tungsten lights are very red, perhaps 2800K.

The camera's AWB (auto white balance) setting can cope with quite a bit of variation, but your indoor lamps are beyond its range.

You need to adjust the white balance to the Tungsten setting, which will render the lighting more natural.

Use the Fn menu button for fast access to this menu.

A focusing screen is a pice of optically flat ground glass onto which the lens projects its image.

In more modern terms, it is a pice of plastic doing the same job, but shaped on the underside with concentric lines that are called a fresnel lens that makes the illumination much more even. Then focusing aids can be cut into the screen to aid manual focus, but as you know these are usually omitted from autofocus cameras.

There are some SLRs with superb screens, but mostly manual focus models.

The effects described such as the "pixellation" (not a word used when screens like that were standard) are the microprism spot, very familiar to Spotmatic users.

The split image screen was widely use from the ME Super series onwards, but was avaialable earlier if requested. In the M cameras and others of that period the split image was usually surrounded by a microprism collar, giving the best of both worlds.

If you want a mind blowing screen for clarity try the 1959 Bessamatic from Voigtlander, which will astonish modern SLR users for its brilliance. The downside is that only the centre portion can be used for focusing as the main screen is an aerial image.

The *istDS screen is actually pretty good for a DSLR, much better than Nikon and Canon IMHO. Using the sliding switch above the eyepiece will enable you to adjust the viewfinder optics for your individual eyesight.

My Mum used to smoke. One cigarette a day she said. Then she said well, except weekends. And then: weekends are really Friday, Saturday, Sunday aren't they?

If we take this logic and apply it to lenses, I think that gets george "off the hook" and able to buy as many lenses as he wants....

Come to think of it, I can do the same can't I?

The very best monochrome darkroom print is a thing of rare beauty. I have seen some printed by much better printers than I, and they are truly stunning. Typically they have been printed to 20" x 16" on fibre based paper.

Digital cannot reach this highest standard. However, for most of us, digital can produce excellent prints at A3+ and in some cases these can be better than darkroom prints.

The analogy to Hi-Fi has been made before, but in essense the highest quality is obtained from Vinyl. In practice, for most of us the CD will be clearly superior.