What Kodak actually said was that they were ceasing manufacture of film cameras in Europe and the USA but continuing with them in far eastern markets and Mexico, where growth is still strong. They did not say that they were withdrawing film, which is still a huge market despite Kodak's downturn of around 15% on film sales.

There are also considerable job losses planned because of reduced sales, according to the reports I read.

I am sure we will still be buying film in 30 or 40 years time if we wish to. Don't forget that we can still get 127 and 620 film (just!) from one or two remote sources so it takes a very long time for things to disappear. The last time I checked even glass plates were still available!

You need a K mount adapter, cost around £12.95, which will effectively turn the camera mount into a screw mount while it is fitted.

It depends. I have never found conventional photography to be restricting - if the subject warrants it quite a few of my prints have been montages/combination prints for various reasons. Some of them I have recreated digitally by scanning the original component negatives. Physically cutting up prints and sticking them together and using layers in Photoshop can amount to the same thing and in the end the process has been driven by the desire to create a particular statement in visual terms.

I don't think my actual photography has changed at all - only the techniques used and the method of getting to the end result may be different. (And, as I still use my darkroom, maybe it will sometimes stay the same)

A really good source of the sort of information you are asking for is the photographic magazine of the era. You can see the reviews, the adverts, the letters, the frequency with which pictures taken on your camera appear, the eventual second hand adverts for it, and so on.

I collect old photographic magazines for this purpose. Foe the ME Super, try back issues of AMATEUR PHOTOGRAPHER, PHOTOGRAPHY, PHOTO TECHNIQUE, PRACTICAL PHOTOGRAPHY and others.

Just picking up the one point, regarding a replacement for the MX. There are only two modern Pentax bodies that in an operational sense can easily substitute for the MX - the MZ5/MZ5n and the MZ3. These have traditional shutter speed dials and can be used just like an MX if so desired. The *ist is a different design philosophy altogether, especially as it also does away with the traditional aperture ring.

We bought Sue (my wife) an *ist and it's an excellent camera, but also it will guide our decision on whether to invest in the *istD. We are still sitting on the fence with this one, but as the alternative would be one of the Nikon based bodies (D1X, Fuji S2 Pro, Kodak etc) it would need a ridiculous reinvestment in lenses.

We shall see what the PMA show brings!

Looks like that could be it.

The P30T certainly has a cable release socket, on the side of the mirror box.

The P30T takes a standard cable release, but it screws into the side of the mirror housing, not into the shutter release button. Have a look half way down the housing on the left side of the camera (the opposite side to the shutter release).

Our experience so far suggests the following:

Use CF cards as opposed to microdrives (no moving parts and more reliable)

Use more smaller cards rather than one big card (if a card fails for whatever reason you will not lose too many pictures)

At the moment we use Fuji 128MB cards and would probably not go above 256MB card size, for the reasons stated above.

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