Don't forget the requirement for weather resistance.

I wonder if anyone in the world has ever bought a complete set of colours...that would be one serious collector.

Your voice is fine, there are a couple of clumsy sentences that might be worth looking at, but apart from that it's OK.

You've presented your technique clearly, not the way I would do a BW conversion, but it's your technique and that's also fine. Desaturating doesn't give any control over changing the tonal values in an image, unlike using film where coloured filters would be used to make sure different colours of similar brightness were differentiated.

Selecting a channel or using Channel Mixer would give you that control.

Hope that helps!

If you look through the throat of the camera with lens removed, you will see the mirror. Now look upwards and you will see the focusing screen.

When you look through the viewfinder, you are seeeing the image projected onto that screen, reflected upwards by the mirror. When you take the picture, the mirror briefly flips up to allow the light through to the sonsor.

The flip of the mirror blanks out the viuewfinder image very briefly - you can see this effect every time to take a shot.

The image is focused on the screen and as the distance lens to screen is the same as lens to sensor you can judge focus. That's why we should be cautious about changing the screen. Affect the distances, even by a tiny amount, and you will no longer focus correctly.

Unless you know what you're doing, my advice is leave well alone.

This is just a personal point if view, but I actually prefer the layout of the K20D. The K-7 didn't seem enough of a step up for me to take it up. I had to wait for the K-5 until I was happy that I could gain something from the upgrade. I often leapfrog upgrades, perhaps buying every other model improvement rather than all of them.

Taken in isolation though, the K-7 is fine. It would make a better match when paired with the K-5, for example, as it uses the same battery and the layout is the same.

Indeed so Algi.

Considering your location, then weather resistance would seem appropriate!

The K20D would be ideal as a lower cost option, or even the K10D if your choice is limited by availability.

As for lenses, any of the weather resistant kit lenses or star lenses.

If possible then, K20D with WR 18-55mm and 50-200mm lenses. The 16-45mm and 55-300mm are not WR, although if that isn't an issue they would be a superior choice. The 18-135mm WR is also excellent, but perhaps beyond the price levels you had in mind.

The creation of the 50mm f1.2 was one of the things that was made possible by the introduction of the K mount. This increased the throat diameter from 42mm to 45mm, thus allowing more scope in lens design.

Of course it isn't impossible to make an f1.2 lens for screw thread, but presumably Asahi thought it wasn't good enough.

The lack of microprism/split image actually dates back a very, very long way, as far as the introduction of AF cameras. Perhaps it was deemed superfluous or perhaps it interfered with the accuracy of AF.

It depends on how you work, but personally I always used the general ground glass area to focus, preferring that to the focusing aids. Consequently, I preferred a plain screen anyway. Plain screens were available, along with all the other varieties. The other argument for them is that there are no distractions to composition.

The other screen that many find useful is the grid screen, but when I obtained one I was disappointed and found is intrusive rather than helpful.

We do need, therefore, to find the screen that suits, but I would suggest being quite sure that fitting the new screen does not upset the accuracy of the collimation, the metering or the AF. These are all high precision requirements, so i would at least fit the proper screens to my camera. Just because something can be made to fit does not guarantee that it's doing the job.

I especially like the intelligent use of black and white. You have made some superb graphic images there, full of detail and texture.