A shame about the QuickShift.

Lenses project an image and without correction it would be spherical rather than flat. The consequence is that the centre could be in focus whilst the edges are out, or vice-versa.

Lenses are corrected for this to make the image field flatter. Macro lenses are more or less completely corrected, but it becomes more difficult with wider aperture lenses.

This is usually more of a problem close up or with flat subjects such as documents. Hence with 50mm lenses f/1.8 designs generally have a flatter field than f/1.4 or f/1.2 designs.

All the info is already on Pentax User - see the panel to the right of the page.

QuickShift, rounded aperture blades and a smaller lens, plus lower price.

The rounded aperture blades are intended to give a superior rendering especially for portraiture.

Plus probably, if previous dersigns are a guide, the f/1.8 version will have a much flatter field and be more suitable for general optical abuse - close up work in particular.

Those are some of the reasons why.

Classified Ads should be only for the buying/selling process and final feedback as to how it went. Sour grapes have no place, so please bear that in mind.

Correction lenses M were available in a range fro, -5 to +3, but the need for these has no doubt reduced drastically as dioptre correction is now built into cameras.

I wear glasses and the dioptre correction range is fine with those. If you need to adjust it further then perhaps an optician could make something suitable.

As far as I know the current fitting is M series size, so you might be lucky and find something second hand. The original correction lenses are quite rare, but maybe a phone around dealers and a visit to a camera fair could be the answer.

If you set the camera to green mode and pop up the flash it should sort it out for you.

Set in other modes you can I think vary its output from the menus so the degree of fill-in suits.

The thing about fill in flash is to add a small amount of light to the shadow areas without overwhelming them. Subtelty...

Montbretia? Actually I like them as plants and the image is a classy one too.

Brilliantly bizarre....

I have heard that they do and it is claimed that the bugs merely become inactive and then wake up again when they get warm.

It's a simple light meter, integrating everything to a neutral grey. No computer.

Imagine this: photograph a grey box and it will turn out grey. No problem. Then substitute a black box, camera thinks it's too dark and makes it grey. Now a white box, camera thinks it's too bright and makes it grey.

Our brain knows what it should be, so applies exposure compensation or uses manual exposure.

The human brain has qualities that a computer does not.