eBay is a great resource, even better if you know what you are looking for. Otherwise, there are camera fairs and second hand dealers. Private sales can be made successfully from advertisments seen in AP and other magazines.

Around 1980 a magazine called CREATIVE PHOTOGRAPHY ran comparative tests on pretty much the full range of manufacturers and independent lenses. They covered 50mm 1.8, 50mm 1.4, 50mm fast (1.2 etc), 28mm, 100mm, macro lenses, 80-200 zooms and so on. Very interesting it was too, and pentax did consistently well in these tests, outperforming some very expensive competition. I haven'y seen anything as extensive since then, but maybe someone can point you to some appropriate web sites?

The DA 18-55mm comes in for some criticism, but I've found my particular example to be well up to producing nice crisp A3 prints. It is compact and appears to be well made.

The 16-45mm does seem attractive, but at a higher cost in terms of price and bulk. It has a superb reputation.

I'm looking forward to seeing the new DA 12-24mm, which will help satisfy us wide angle photographers.

The DA 40mm is also very attractive, but although it would make a nice portrait lens it has limited use relatively speaking.

I've never been a fan of independent lenses, and always recommend sticking to Pentax!

I agree, George, it doesn't really amount to much!

The larger screen is nice, and speaking for myself as I use aperture priority exposure almost all the time, the exposure modes available don't make much difference either.

By the way, I know these DSLRs are supposed to be amongst the most compact on the market, but they are huge compared to my M series cameras! Progress is a funny mixture of things.

It's a tough choice, but the *istDS has a better screen, USB 2.0, smaller SD cards and updated firmware.

The *istD uses the (I think) better CF cards

I bought the *istDS, and even at equal prices I would do so again.

The *istD price has fallen dramatically, as shown by some very exciting prices in the AMATEUR PHOTOGRAPHER ads.

If you want to buy from Jessops, which is a pretty good idea because they offer an excellent back up service, then you could always ask if they can price match.

The K1000 is compatible with all manual focus K lenses, including the A series. All atofocus lenses with an aperture ring can also be used in manual focus mode, so the only lenses excluded are the latest J and DA lenses that have no aperture ring.

The M and A lenses are the most useful in this case, IMHO!

Lenses are a very personal choice, depending on your style of photography, but the classic choice would be 28mm/50mm/135mm.

I prefer 24mm/50mm/100mm because I like wide angle photography, and because the SMC Pentax-M 100mm f2.8 lens is compact and utterly superb...You might substitute a 100mm f4 Macro lens if your interests include close up work.

The A series zooms work well with your camera, and my favourites are:
SMC Pentax-A 24-50mm f4
SMC Pentax-A 35-70mm f4

The outsanding M series zoom is
SMC Pentax-M 24-35mm f3.5

Just my opinion, so look for others to make suggestions as well, and bear in mind your own photographic style will dictate what suits best.

You have a fully manual, solid camera that will perform extremely well if you can get to grips with it. It will teach you much more about photography than an auto-everything camera, and for this reason it was for many years the camera of choice in colleges everywhere.

You really need an instruction book, a basic book on photography, some film and then lots of picture-taking.

Film: If you use slide film, you will be able to judge the accuracy of your exposures, and see the untampered with results of any special effects you might try.

Cautions: Check the battery in the baseplate is OK, and always put the lens cap on when not taking shots as there is a photo-electric switch that turns the meter on at around EV3. If this is left on the battery will exhaust quite quickly.
If you have a cable release, do use it very gently as many have very long plungers that will damage the camera if used over-enthusiastically. Only gently press just far enough to trip the shutter and no further.

But above all else, have fun learning to use your new camera!

I'm no expert, but you will see a similar sort of thing when you look at the capacity of the hard drive on your computer. Some of the theoretically available space is taken up with partitioning and with the basic file structure of the disk.

If you use a memory card with more than one camera, or buy a new camera, then you will find more folders on the card and more "wasted" space. This is one of the good reasons to format a memory card before you use it in any particular camera for the first time.

In any event, the space quoted for a card will not be strictly accurate, as a 1GB card will be 1024 MB if I've done my sums right!

I'll try it out to check that and let you know what happens.

Thanks!