The *ist is quite a small camera, but it is very well sculpted and fits the hands beautifully. In some ways it is bulkier than an MX or ME, but the shape is quite different. It is light but not excessively so. All in all, the handling is extremely good.

I have just been looking very carefully at the tripod socket, and although the base plate of the camera is plastic the tripod thread itself is a separate part and I am not sure that it isn't black finished metal. It's actually very hard to tell! I would assume that whatever material it is manufactured from it has been designed to hold the camera securely on a tripod, so I'm going to have to assume the Pentax engineers have made the correct design decisions!

Hope that helps!

We've done quite a bit of photography in the past couple of weeks so Sue has now had a chance to get through a few films in her new *ist.

The conclusion (admittedly without seeing any results yet) is very favourable. She loves the handling of the camera, the zoom lens and finds the autofocus to be excellent. She has been exploring the various picture modes and it remains to be seen whether she will use these or revert back to aperture priority or some other traditional programme.

I have handled the camera and although substantially polycarbonate in construction it is very well made and I would have no complaints about using it. The controls are smooth, the finish extremely good and it looks to be good value for money as well.

So, apart from my neanderthal liking of aperture rings on lenses, we like what we have bought and the next logical step will be to add the *istD when it is available. I won't have any reservations about that, so don't tell Sue what her Christmas present might be!

Sue took her new *ist out this weekend for its first test run and she seemed to get on with it OK. More to follow...

Mostly plastic, yes, but at least with a metal mount and with a good spec with lots of useful custom functions. I guess we have to move with the times - although I prefer the feel of metal cameras in many ways, the newer plastic ones seem to work just as well and the Pentax ones do appear to be very well made.

I have just replaced my macro lens with the SMC Pentax FA 100mm f3.5 - again, plastic, but it seems with the same sort of 5 element/four group construction as previous lenses and it works just fine. It might even survive a fall rather better than its metal predecessors.

So, to answer you question, with the same reservations about all that plastic as yourself but in reality it seems to deliver the goods!

The basic setting of custom functions is as follows:

1 Set the mode dial to CUSTOM
2 Use the 4 way controller on the camera back (up/down) to select custom number
3 Use the same controller (left/right) to set the setting number required. This will be shown on the LCD panel.
4 Take the mode dial off CUSTOM to complete the process.

Hope that answers your question, Stephen!

I've just read your second question, Stephen.

Page 140 of the manual gives the following details for the custom function CF12:

[1] Self timer delay of 12 sec
[2] Self timer delay of 2 sec with mirror lock up

Page 58 confirms that with mirror lock up the mirror locks up and the shutter is released 2 seconds later. I presume this is to allow time for any vibration from the mirror to die down before the shutter is released. As this would be most useful with macro work on a tripod there would be no need for a longer delayed action in this instance.

Hi Stephen,

As far as I can tell from the instruction book, to use the aperture ring on a lens one of the custom functions has to be changed. Not a problem in itself, but it does not specify whether or not it needs to be changed back to use a J lens or an A lens on the A setting. As we experiment we will find the answers!

We too have a large number of M lenses and we will be continuing to use them.

We ordered and paid for our *ist at Jessops a couple of months ago, so we were glad to get an early supply!

We took delivery of the *ist I bought for Sue today.

Very light, very well specified. The custom functions look interesting - very useful to be able to leave the leader out of the cassette when rewinding, certainly for us home processors. The lack of an aperture ring on the lens is a bit unusual to me, but I can see how it's going to work and it's whether it works in a practical way that matters.

The plan is to add an *istD if the *ist works out well, and have film and digital cameras that work in the same way and share lenses and accessories.

I'll let you know how she gets on with the new camera, but for now first impressions are good.

It's a long shot, but do check that the lens is seated properly - remove it and refit it securely, just in case the linkage was not connecting properly. Is the battery inserted the correct way round? Other than that, a quote for repair looks likely to be needed. KX's in good condition seem to have quite high asking prices, so a repair may well be worth while, on the other hand an MX could probably be found for the cost of the repair. It's always a tough choice with cameras of this age.

I am very much of the opinion that you will be best served by buying only Pentax lenses. The reasons are:

Consistent colour balance lens to lens
Fairly uniform filter sizes - with careful choices you can end up almost exclusively using 49mm filters
Speed of operation - all the focusing rings and aperture rings will turn in the same direction (only Nikon apertures are the same way round as Pentax)
Better physical matching of lens to mount
Superb and consistent optical and mechanical quality

There are masses of second hand Pentax lenses available, and I'm sure that you will not be disappointed. Happy hunting!