If you have a lens with an "A" setting, there is no point using the aperture ring. It will mean that you have to stop down manually, whereas the A setting will give you full functionality.

With M or K lenses you will indeed need to go the manual stop down route, which I personally find less convenient and so I don't use these lenses with the *istDS (in general, anyway).

Maybe not deluding yourself, but not helping yourself in one way. A poor quality processor may use old chemicals, may scratch your negatives, will certainly have a very variable standard of printing. This last point means that you may not know when you have a great neg to enlarge because the processors have messed it up.

If you really want to make progress I would suggest slide film. What you take will be what you get, which will teach you a lot more and a lot more quickly. It is relatively unforgiving in terms of exposure but you will be able to judge how you have done. Also, any colour balance problems will be obvious without being compounded by a processor trying to make corrections for you.

There's no easy way!

The 3500K etc., refers to degrees kelvin, the absolute temperature scale. This is colour temperature, and the lower the figure the more red the light will be. It does also relate to wavelength of the light, but this is not directly relevant to the practicalities.

To get correct colour rendition with tungsten or photoflood lights you will need any of the following options:

1. A Digital SLR will enable you to alter the white balance to get the result you require.

2. There is such a thing as Tungsten film that would appear very blue in daylight, but which will render artificial light more accurately.

3. Use daylight colour film with a correction filter (blue). The 80A is a good place to start, but stronger versions are available if needed (80B, etc.)

I like using tungsten lights as I find I can see the result of the lighting much more clearly than with flash, even studio flash. Many of my portraits are shot with tungsten. It also helps to keep the model warm....

For close ups, though, I actually prefer using daylight via a large window, but sometimes adding a bit of tungsten in to provide a selective glow to the shot.

I've been thinking about the ultra-wide zooms, and for the moment i have decided to order the pentax 16-45. This goes from a fairly wide 24mm equivalent to almost a 70mm equivalent, a very useful range.

Two things influenced this choice.

First, I was tempted by 12-24 and 24-90 as an obvious pair, but most pictures might suit the middle point of this, meaning that I would be forever wanting to zoom from say 18-50 ish and having therefore to change lenses.

Second, I've really looked hard at my pictures and the truth is that most of the ultra-wide shots I've made with a 15mm could happily have been made with a 24mm without any loss of content. The number of occasions that we really need something wider than 24mm equivalent could be very rare. So I've been tightening up my composition.

The result is that the 16-45 is on order, and it will offer me a slight advantage coverage wise over the 18-55. The loss of the telephoto end is not so important to me and anyway I have the 24-90 should it be needed.

So in the end the choice is a more modest lens, at least for now!

I'm pretty much decided that my digital kit will be the Pentax 12-24mm coupled with my existing Pentax 24-90mm.

That does seem to offer a large focal length range of excellent quality.

For low light shooting I will also add the 50mm f1.7 to the bag.

Half the price is fair enough, but it might not be 2mm wider....

Any zoom lens is quoted as an approximation, and if for example the Sigma was actually a 10.8-20.8mm and the Pentax was a 11.5mm-23.5mm then the difference would be quite small. I'm not saying that's what they are, but they could be...

So it might be an idea to try them on your camera at some point and see what you think, and then you would also be able to judge the ergonomics of the designs and the build quality.

The shutter used in pre-Spotmatic cameras is not so durable, so it is more than likely that it will need overhaul.

For regular use, I would always prefer a Spotmatic, which is more ruggedly designed in many ways.

However, the S3 is a nice camera and why not keep it going a little longer, especially if it is in good cosmetic condition.

It could have been mm.......

There are some extraordinary 35mm films available that will defy the limitations you mention, and, of course, the 8x "limit" is an arbitary one. Quality will be lost at any magnification, even 2x, and it will continue to slide ever downwards as you magnify more. At some point we decide it is unacceptable, but even this will vary between viewers.

We already know the effects of viewing distance, and a 300ppi print is needed for viewing close up, but a 150ppi one may look just as sharp from a distance, so it can be bigger.

The very best negatives can yield even better results, and on the New York Subway there have been wall sized pictures from 35mm; when films were not as good as they are today.

However, unless we use a sturdy tripod, all this could well be irrelevant anyway!

18x24 what? Inches, feet? However, I know this is rather misleading anyway. 35mm in the right hands can produce wall sized murals. In the wrong hands it can struggle to produce a decent postcard sized print! There really is no particular maximum size - it depends on the technique, the film, the processing, the printing, the viewing distance.

What I can tell you is that a good lens will produce a 16" x 12" print that will exceed the resolution of the human eye when viewed at arm's length.

My first thought is that you don't need massive files like that for a website....

Only you can decide what you need, but the pentax DSLRs are capable of producing stunning A3 prints. Do you print bigger than this?

If you do need more resolution, then moving to the high end Nikon or canon DSLRs is of course an (expensive) option. You need all the new lenses as well, and don't forget the necessary computing power and hard drive capacity to cope with the very large image files.

You will know if this is what you need for your particular applications.