The 55mm f/1.4 is one of the newer lenses and is reputed to be superb.

The 50mm lenses will be good alternatives if the price of the 55mm is too high. The newer 50mm f/1.8 is something of a bargain.

The 18-135mm is a great all round lens. If you need a portrait lens then the 50mm ones are fine, but the 55mm f/1.4 is the classic lens for this. Don't forget these cameras are APS-C, so 55mm is giving you the same field of view that 85mm would on 35mm film.

There is a lot to know about portrait photography and there are many photographers who can extract a real feeling of personality from their subjects.

Yes, black and white came first, although bear in mind that colour was possible even in the late 1800s. The Autochromes around 1900 were in themselves quite beautiful and tri-colour techniques were well known very early on.

For sheer beauty in the face of dreadful technique, look no further that Julia Margaret Cameron who saw the feeling and humanity in her subjects. Technically many of her pictures are poor, but they are great pictures.

The point about colour is that it can distract. Bright colourful clothes, for example, make a bold statement and tend to overshadow the person, unless it is handled very carefully. Hence the quote provided by Gareth. Sometimes colour is integral, more often than not it gets in the way.

Look at as many books of portraits as you can, some of them are so far beyond what we normally see that it's worth pausing to try and analyse what their quality is.

There are so many potential options that it could be quite confusing.

I would start with a standard kit, so you'd probably get the 18-55mm plus 50-200mm, or alternatively just the 18-135mm. This starts you off into the system. It should soon be apparent whether the next lens purchase should be something wider or longer and at that point you can add another lens as appropriate.

I wouldn't buy it all at once as it will just be a mass of conflicting choices and won't give you a chance to really get to grips with a smaller range.

The K-3 has won the accolade of Best DSLR Expert in the TIPA Awards 2014.

You shouldn't feel too disheartened as in all cases you have honed in on the subject and not left unwanted space around them. That's good.

It would be better to shoot animals coming towards you, rather than the backs of them, but that would apply to most people shots as well.

As for manual, there wasn't really any need to use this mode. Av would have been more than enough, setting an aperture and letting the camera set the shutter speed. The metering would have been fine and exposure compensation wouldn't have been needed either.

I would try again with a higher ISO so that you get higher shutter speeds and maybe wider apertures, for the same reason. Then a quick tweak in Photoshop or similar and you should be there.

Well we're not talking about normal images of people there, and even a camera lens has a much bigger opening than the human eye, so I think I'll keep my scepticism intact!

I like doors, although it's usually the whole door and frame that grab me. These are usually derelict as well, so no tetchy owners to leap out and demand why we are photographing their door.

As activities go, it's potentially more suspicious than photographing strange people....

The M60 is quite an old camera and I think it will seem very slow these days.

To be honest, a DSLR would be best for this, so maybe a second hand K-x or K-r if you want to keep the cost down. The more recent they are, the faster they are.

I always thought the GXR was an odd design and I wasn't really happy with the idea that the sensor size would vary with different lenses. That would surely lead to variable results across the lens range.

It's good that manufacturers will try things though, and hopefully they weren't left too much out of pocket.