The SP1000 is basically a Spotmatic without the self timer. It was one of the last screw thread Pentaxes to be available, being phased out in favour of the bayonet mount K1000.

I presume you jave tried a new battery of the correct type? You would need a Wein 1.35v cell, available from Jessops and others such as the Small Battery Company. 1.5v cells that appear to fit should be avoided as they do not give accurate readings because of the higher voltage.

You could also try cleaning the battery contacts with a rubber or some mild sandpaper, and maybe the meter will spring into life. If not, it will be as cheap to buy a new body, but why not a Spotmatic, which is the sdame but with the self timer? There are plenty of those on eBay!

Hi Colin

4) Sorry not be clearer! If you attach a reverse adapter to the filter ring of a lens, you can then bayonet the lens in reverse onto the camera. This will give you a very close focus to the subject, in other words a high magnification. It will also deliver better quality this way round because lenses are not necessarily designed to be at their best very close.

Another way of reversing lenses is to use a different type of reverse adapter that enables you to fit two lenses together face to face so to speak. Usually a telephoto is on the camera and a wide angle is attached in reverse to the front of this. This is also for close up work.

Results will vary depending on the lenses.

A good example of a reason for reversing lenses might be if you wanted to photograph a small postage stamp. Reversing the lens would enable you to get close enough, and the subject would be critically sharp from edge to edge.

Hope that helps!

1) No reason why not

2) Available new around £13, on eBay sometimes for more than that!

3) I skipped ahead and answered that in 2).....

4) Very high magnification for macro work, with superior edge to edge sharpness. I think you can also mount 28mm lenses in reverse on the front of telephotos for macro work. (Probably not good with zooms, though)

1) Without seeing the pictures it's difficult to judge, but if you have a lot of sky in the frame then this is very bright and could fool the camera into underexposing.

2} If the grain is still present on your computer screen it could be either that you are taking the pictures in conditions that are quite dark or that you have the ISO setting on your camera too high. Try shooting at the best resolution at the lowest ISO in good light and see if the problem clears up.

3) Try the sister site to this one www.ephotozine.co.uk

4) Whichever you like best. I prefer the pentax designs, but both will give excellent results.

As with all digital cameras, the first thing to do is to format the memory card in the camera you will be using it in.

This will dlete all data on the card and set it up for the new camera.

Pentax have good products, and with enough promotion there is no reason why they shouldn't be very successful. Which would be helpful for future projects as well.

I wonder what will happen to the 67 as medium format cameras in general seem to be under a lot of pressure from digital.

I haven't heard about this yet, but to be honest once I've bought something then I just get on with enjoying it and don't worry any more about the price. Things are dropping in price all the time and we could wait forever and still find it cheaper next week!

Perhaps it's a good opportunity to buy a spare?

I wish I'd noticed that 20-35mm!

There is no doubt that you should be careful when buying second hand gear, but not so careful that you miss the many potential bargains to be found....

It is useful to know what you are looking for, which comes with time, but there is so much beautiful mint hardly used equipment out there. It's just a matter of learning to recognise the good bets from the bad.

Worth a go, IMHO.

For any computer, with Windows 98SE and later certainly, you can purchase a USB card reader that will enable you to read the SD cards directly. These are very inexpensive, probably less than £10, and are the most efficient way to get the images into a PC.