In this day and age it's hard to believe that such a device is produced that is supposed to be thrown away when the battery dies, rather than simply replacing the battery. I understand it's easier to make it waterproof that way, but surely it can't be more than a case of an extra o-ring to waterproof a battery compartment.

Some people have very twisted visions of the photographic equipment landscape. What continues to amaze me is that some of them work in the industry and get paid to voice their ignorance.

If you ever come across the K version it's bigger and heavier but optically better.

I noticed this morning that Camera World have some very good prices on some Kodak films:

T-Max 400 (135) £5
Portra 160 (120 x5) £36
Portra 400 (120 x5) £39

Delivery is £5 but even then if you buy a few items I think it'd work out at a good price.

https://www.cameraworld.co.uk/camera-accessories/film-accessories.html

If I still lived in the UK, or had any immediate prospect of getting back to visit, I'd be stocking up on that T-Max. Kodak are hiking their prices in the new year so now is a good time to buy.

Battery grip FB is the standard SFX grip, taking one Lithium battery.

If it's purely to browse and transfer images, I'm not sure if that will work with a tablet, it may have to be a "fully-fledged" PC/Mac.

For years I've used a Toshiba FlashAir card in my K3 to transfer images to my phone and this would also work with a tablet. It's an excellent little device with capacities up to 64GB.

From the title I thought you'd gotten sick of it and were going to sell it off

That's still a good price even though it's the oldest of the Sigma 70-200/2.8s. I have the same one in worse condition and paid more than that for it.

If my copy's anything to go by, here are the downsides of this version:

1. Focus wide open is a little hit-and-miss on my K-3. By that I mean that focus can be slightly off where it's supposed to be. Shooting at f/4 reduces this problem quite a bit, or check focus immediately after (which I always do anyway, regardless of lens and aperture).

2. The coatings can give some scenes a yellowish cast which can be difficult to get rid of in post, at least for me. In most situations (95%) it doesn't do this though.

Still, with those caveats it's still a lot of lens for the price.

If anyone wants to have a peek at what it can do, my Flickr album is here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jonathandmacdonald/albums/72157694277712051

That's a lovely set-up.

I didn't know there were different versions - what are the differences between them?

I believe it's possible to set up a Raspberry Pi with attached HDD to be a NAS, at much lower cost than buying a NAS off the shelf.