Some years ago I bought a Pentax extension tube set - probably for the Super A, at the time.

I rather stupidly gave them away with the camera when I sold it and I've been hunting around for a replacement set at a reasonable price recently.

There are loads on offer on Ebay but the set I had had a row of contacts which presumably linked some information from the lens back to the camera. These contacts don't seem to be present on the sets I've seen for sale.

What did these contacts do and am I going to miss them on a K10D or *istD?

Thanks.

I'll add my weight to Gimp. Once you're used to it, it 's excellent.

Also, no one seems to have mentioned Google's Picasa. For basic editing and fixing, it's very good.

I do tire of this blinkered view of the image processing world that has Photoshop in clear view and bugger all else around it.

There are many options for processing images that do not cost a fortune and are just as effective. The GIMP http://www.gimp.org/ is a good example. It is free and can do all the cropping, sharpening, scaling and editing you're likely to need.

There is also the incredibly powerful Image Magick for batch processing and dcraw and ufraw for raw manipulation. As far as I know, they all run on Windows as well as Linux.

Photoshop is not the only answer and isn't even the first answer.

When I sold my Super-A, I made the stupid mistake of selling along with it, a set of zoom lenses, auto extension tubes and a 2x tele-converter. I had the idea at the time that if it wasn't auto-focus then it was no longer of any use.

I regret that now and am quite keen to extend my range of lenses.

The problem I have is not knowing what is compatible with the K10D. I know that anything K, KA or KAF compatible should work but I get the impression from stuff I've read that other lenses are also compatible.

So the question is, how do I identify lenses and other optical kit that will work with my cameras?

Thanks for any info.

I think you're spot on.

No you're not . I ordered one from 7dayshop for £7.

Interesting to note that the RRP of this battery is £45 which means that either 7dayshop got a fantastic bargain from their suppliers or other resellers are running their 4x4s off sales to unwitting customers.

A poor comparison, in my opinion. A cheap battery may not last as long as an expensive one but it isn't going to affect picture quality. (Let us assume the camera is smart enough to shutdown when the voltage is inadequate.)

Thanks for the links, everyone. Once you know the equivalent models, you can avoid getting ripped-off.

Cheers.

I decided I should have a spare battery so I went a-Googling.

http://www.morrisphoto.co.uk/productdetails~ProductID~6417~selection~696.html

Good grief!

Suddenly, I'm going to have to make do with just the one for now.

Is the Sigma compatible with all the Pentax shooting modes?

I'm quite tempted by the Pentax lens but, as I've only recently bought the K10D, I should let my bank balance recover a bit.

Thanks for the info.

Wow! I'm staggered at the price of these lenses.

The 10-17 is over £300 and the 12-24 over £520.

Has the world gone mad?