If you can shoot without the window in frame, f11 and aperture priority should be ok, no flash. Bracket a stop either way.

If you have to have the window in frame, whack a flash in direct to fill in. Vary the exposure and pick the best.

It'll be hard to do worse than an estate agent with a compact held in one hand!

My thoughts entirely. Thanks!

I didn't know it had to be more or better, Martin, I just thought it might be useful.
I personally like tools that do one thing well. With this I can see all the inf without leaving my DOPUS file manager.

In future, I'll try to get your approval before posting

For anyone who uses Windows and likes to peruse ALL the data from their image exif files, I've just worked out a handy way of doing it.

Download exiftool from
http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/

Put it in any folder you like in 'Program Files' and rename exiftool.exe to exiftool (-k).exe.

Find the SendTo folder in 'Documents and settings' and make a shortcut to exiftool (-k).exe.

Now, when you right click any picture file (myhouse.dng, for example) on your system, in the 'Send To' sub folder, you will find 'exiftool'. Click on it and a DOS box opens up with a full listing of the exif information.

There are any number of ways of getting exif information, of course but this is highly convenient, fast and above all gives you ALL the info.

How I lived without knowing that my camera temperature was 33c when I photographed that landscape and that the Y Cb Cr Coefficient was 0.299 0.587 and 0.114 I do not know

These things are personal decisions, really. Sharpnness is only one aspect of lens performance.

I don't think that any 1000px wide picture tells you anything, even a compact can look superb at that size.

For example, this is from my Panasonic compact. At 1000px cross, I doubt there's any difference between this and what my GX20 could do.

Best to keep them both - as a professional photographer, if your zoom jams, you've always got the 31mm as a back up.

I reckon that if they refused you could take them to the small claims court.
The argument that you intentionally bought an expensive quality item with a high reputation with the expectation that it would last longer than it has would carry some force.
A comparison list of similar but cheaper lenses available would serve to reinforce your argument.
It would be pretty poor and disquieting if it came to that, however.

I've seen some examples of the Sigma 50-500 and can't help feeling you'd get better results with the 300mm and either cropping or upsampling.

The 15mm manages 18cm.

Thanks - I'll sus that out. I sometimes leave files on my SD card and am too lazy to sort out which ones I've already transferred.

Unique file names mean that my file handler, Directory Opus would flag files I'd already tranferred and save me having to think.

As the old saying goes, you can force me to go to school but you can't make me think.

Is the Samsung mount different, then? I use Pentax lenses on my Samsung GX20 and they work OK.
Are you saying that Samsung brand lenses (not that they make lenses, of course) won't work on a Pentax?