Kits for replacements seals are available. If the mirror damper is sticky then likely all the other seals are also ready for replacement.

I'd look on eBay or Amazon first, or perhaps phone one of the camera repair houses. Maybe somebody has a supplier they have already used?

A quick look at Google will give us all the rumours that we would wish to absorb.

I'm sure any hard facts would be subject to an embargo before release, but all the things that have been mentioned so far are reasonable deductions based on what we think has to be to compete.

Pentax do tend to surprise us though, after all who saw the pixel shift resolution until it suddenly was released?

I absolutely take your points regarding a SOOTC competition Mag07. In its defence I would say that it has proved popular and it works in practice.

Thinking of a slide competition though, which is as SOOTC as we can get, we can still use filters, zoom exposures, cross processing, slow shutter effects, and also choose the contrast and grain characteristics by choosing the film.

A "level playing field" is not as easy as we might imagine. Also, a £1000 lens might make for sharper images than a £50 lens. That too changes the fairness or otherwise of a competition.

It's one of those things if we just take it as read and go out and enjoy making images, being very careful we compose and expose them accurately, then we have the essence of a fun competition. The more we analyse it, the more difficult it becomes.

You're welcome!

We enjoyed Brownsea - fantastic place to visit. This is a really pleasant shot, showing so much detail and with natural colour as well.

https://www.ephotozine.com/user/johnriley1uk-22471/blog/close-up-with-the-q-s1-1...

The link takes us to the full story on my ePHOTOzine blog, but it's probably especially of interest here. The idea of tubes for the Q was very compelling, especially as they have full electronic contacts. Even AF is supposed to work, but MF is, I found, far more reliable. When AF does click in it works exactly as normal, which at macro distances on the Q series is pretty impressive.

The magnification is high and there's potential as well for some creative use. They are not cheap (£49.95 from Amazon) but they were an exciting find, something I didn't know existed.



02 5-15mm zoom and 16mm tube

Glad the problem is solved!

Page 15 and 73 in the manual might help. The RAW/fx button can be programmed to switch the illumination on and off. Is this what has happened? Maybe you pressed the RAW button and hence turned it off?

Perfect location and concept.

The key is to make available something that appeals, rather than something we ourselves might want to use. That's tricky, but one way forward is to go somewhere, loan a camera, and let them join in with some photography. Then take it from there.