My Mum has been staying with us over Christmas, so it will be this weekend before I can try the adapter properly.

Initial observation is that a tripod and very, very careful focusing will be needed. Plus lenses with an aperture ring will be most useful.

Let's hope it's not a substantial cheque that you don't collect!

There was one did not collect that was annoying earlier this year. I sent a book out (eBay sale) and the recipient claimed non arrival. Claimed she had checked at the sorting office. So I refunded, but some weeks later it was returned "Notice left, did not collect" - what a waste of time.

First eBay packages went off this morning - Tyldesley was so quiet, apart from the Outraged Lady in the Post Office. They did treat her very well though. She was outraged because someone had sent her a letter/card/package that had insufficient postage on it and she wasn't going to pay to collect it!

She wasn't even in the sorting office....

The lighting may well have been too low for the camera to record anything, but also if there were any bright street lights in the shot that too would cause the camera to give under-exposure.

Also add to this reciprocity failure, a characteristic of film. This means that correct exposure may be much longer than indicated by a meter. It kicks in at shutter speeds of maybe 1 second or longer. 1 second might actually need 2 seconds, 30 seconds might need 120 seconds, varying depending on the specific film.

There are recoprocity tables that gives a guide, or old Kodak books often have tables of recommended exposures for night photography.

It's a bit vague unfortunately to be sure. "Night shots" could mean quite a few different things, can you be more specific please? Indoors, outdoors, type of lighting, subject matter, etc.

The ME Super is limited to nominally 4 second exposures is Auto (Av) although some samples of the camera may manage longer.

Apart from filters being a very nice "add on" for retailers when they sell a lens, they have little usefulness on digital cameras. Graduated and poloarising filters do actually do something, and under some circumstances haze filters may be useful, but for almost everything else the answer is available in Photoshop.

The "protection" issue has been a subject of fierce debate time and time again, so I'll avoid adding to that!

It sounds very sensible advice for those of us who just want to use the computer in a straightforward manner. I use that but with only 3GB of RAM, but it works just fine.

I will update my OS as and when I buy a new computer.

It might be surprising how many people actually cannot judge even simple things such as when an image is sharp, or the right colour. I've seen it demonstrated.

So it's l;ittle surprise that the most grotesque manipulations will not be noticed by a large percentage of the viewers.

Welcome aboard, I'm sure you will enjoy your new purchases when you receive them!

Darkroom workers have always cloned things out, changed skies, selectively darkened areas, combined negatives, removed or added people....different methods but the processes are mimicked by Photoshop.

There is no absolute reality in photography as reproducing a 3D live scene into a 2D paper or electronic record is artificial in the first place.

There is absolutely no need to feel guilty about making the best of an image, unless the intent is to deceive.