Most Pentaxes open the rear door by pulling up the rewing crank....

The Revueflex cameras are copies of various Zenith, Edixa and Praktica cameras. Infact, there is even a very rare Alpa variant!

I can't find an AC3 listed.

The recessed button on the base-plate is probably to release the film transport so that the film can be rewound.

Now, how to explain what film is.....

IMHO eBay is always a good place to look - I have found some fantastic items at reasonable prices.

Just read the descriptions carefully, check the sellers feedback and ask questions if in doubt. With care, eBay can be excellent.

Why not see if you can pick up a copy of Photoshop 7 at a reasonable price? I like PS7 a lot, although it doesn't tackle the RAW situation. Maybe you could look at some of the RAW converters and then use PS7 to work on the resulting TIFFs?

I have never used any of these really long Pentax lenses, but at that sort of price and with plenty of experience of superb Pentax optics, I think it will be safe to assume it is an outstanding lens.

Typically, lenses of this sort will be very even in performance throughout the range.

Thanks for the link, it's a very interesting review.

Portraits: Don't forget the humble but excellent 50mm manual focus or AF lenses, which make superb fast 75mm equivalents.

Macro: I think AF is useless for much macro photography, so why not a nice 50mm or 100mm manual focus, second hand of course but non the worse for that if you get a good one.

Dimly lit churches: Will you be needing a wide angle for this? More important than a fast lens will be a sturdy tripod IMHO.

A very Merry Christmas to everyone!

The two most respected German optical firms are Zeiss and Schneider. Xenon is one of Schneider's lens names, just like Tessar, Sonnar, Planar, etc., are all famous Zeiss lens names.

I say names, but once I would have said designs. The Sonnar, for example, is a particular 5 element lens design of very high quality.

These days I think the names are just put there to make us think that it has some sort of significant heritage, and apart from the name I don't think it has.

Personally, I am not convinced by prestigious names (Leica, Zeiss, etc.) put onto lenses on inexpensive cameras and made in Japan or Korea or wherever "under licence".

Other famous Schneider lenses would be Xenar, Xenotar, Angulon, Super-Angulon, etc.

My understanding was that the re-design of the shutter to a much more robust unit was part of the Spotmatic development. There were a lot of design improvements at this point, making Spotmatics a viable camera-to-use even today.

My cameras of this vintage have done this before, and lived to tell the tale.