http://tiny.cc/Ef1MO

This, from what I can tell from the pictures is the one I use. Certainly the base plate casting is identical. Can't be more accurate than that though.

Cheers

Liam

Hi,

I'll try to find out if the one I have is still for sale somewhere. It had a tripod thread in the base, and you just screw the QR plate on as you would to the base of the body. It's also shaped in such a way that your hand is in the natural position to operate the shutter release. Mine has been attached to the camera since I first got it some 2 1/2 years ago. To change batteries (on the DL) you just turn the base plate 90° to access the battery door.

Cheers

Liam

Take it out of the enclosure, and slave it internally. Windows should pick up on the fault and run checkdisk. That will identify any faulty clusters, and rewrite the data to a different part of the drive. If you have one or two images slap bang in the middle of the faulty sector, you may lose those, but you'll get pretty much all of it back.

Failing that, get yourself a copy of Knoppix (a Linux live CD ditro).. put it in the CD drive and see if it can see the data. It may be that the indexing info has gone for a burton, and Windows can't see it, but Knoppix can. It's free, but if you can't get a fast internet connection, go for the Puppy Linux live CD. Does the same, but with less bells and whistles.

If the drive still physically functions, either option should work. If it is a physical fault, then as Anvh states above, the platters should be recoverable.

Hope that helps.

If you get stuck with the Linux approach, give me a shout.. although I'm sure there are others equally capable of helping as well.

Cheers

Liam

Hi John,

Like many I have a bag of MF lenses, but for those that don't, would it be possible for someone with only AF lenses to tape up one or more of the lens/body contacts to achieve the same result, and if so which ones?

Just a thought..

Cheers

Liam

Hi Amin,

keep the original be it RAW or jpg (taken at the highest possible quality every time), and work on a copy of it. Always.. always.. always keep the original image from the camera safe and unmutilated. Did I say always keep the original.

Whether you choose to shoot jpg or RAW is a debate for another day.. it's been covered here more than once. If the K20 does both at the same time (I beleive the K10 did) then do that. Memory is cheap these days.

You may find that you have to buy a bigger hard drive to store everything, but they're so cheap it doesn't matter. Probably looking at £80 for a 1tb HD. (that's 100,000 images at 10mb.. should be enough for now.. ) When you've had some practice at post processing, you may want to come back to your pictures and have another go at editing them. If the only copy you have has already been edited, you can't do much with it.

And don't forget to back up. If you stuff the only hard drive you have, you lose the lot. If you'd happily pay someone £80-100 to fix your computer and retreive all your pictures, documents etc. spend it now on a second hard drive. External; USB or firewire will do. Firewire is quicker, but if it's only for backup then either will do.

You say that you will print at postcard size.. give it a while..

My DL is only 6mp, but it happily produces quality prints at A3. Your K20 will go to A2 and above. When you become more profficient, you might want to see your work on the wall.. or even sell the odd image. If you've saved it as a 72dpi web image, you'll be able to print it at passport photo size if you're lucky.

Hope that helps..

Cheers

Liam

Hi Amin,

A few basics on exposure.. I apologise if you already know some/all of this already. (I don't use a K20, but the principles are the same for all cameras)

The sensor, be that digital or film is sensetive to a certain dynamic range of light, and will automatically adjust to what is known as 18% grey.. (hence the grey card for setting exposure is known as an 18% grey card). This means that unless you go fully manual, it will tend to lighten an otherwise dark shot, and conversely darken a light shot.

If you just use the camera as a point and shoot, it will choose what it thinks is the best combination of aperture, shutter speed and ISO. Usually, you will have set the ISO before hand, and so it chooses aperture and shutter speed on the distance to focal point, and general light available.

ISO, aperture and shutter speed are all interlinked. To have the same amount of light fall upon the sensor, by halving one, you'll double another. if you have a constant ISO (say 100) and take a shot at f8 and 1/60th sec, to take the same shot with more depth of field, you'd change the aperture to f16. The camera would then adjust the shutter speed to 1/30th of a second to keep the same amount of light falling on the sensor.

Conversely, if you wanted to reduce blur by increasing the shutter speed to 1/125th of a second (the doubling/ halving is always close but not always exact.. historically) then the aperture would adjust to f4, so that you get the same amount of light falling on the sensor.

Sorry, got a phone call.. have to pop out for a little while, I'll finish on my return..

Cheers

Liam

Hi, and welcome to the forum..

I use Picasa 3 to organise everything, and GIMP for post processing.

As far as monitors go, I use a HP A4331D 20" (19" viewable) monitor. It uses a Sony tube, and I use Wysiwyg to calibrate it. Cost £15 on Ebay last year, after my other one went pop..

CRTs are almost a disposable item these days, as everybody wants a flat screen, so they flog the CRT for next to nothing to get it out of the house. Be prepared to make room for it though, mine measures 20.5" depth x 19.5" (height) x 18.5" (width); and have a few weetabix before you start lugging it around. I'm not exactly a midget, but they aint light..

Using any monitor, it will always perform best when calibrated. This means that you will get acurate rendition of colours, contrast and brightness.. fairly important.

Cheers

Liam

Hi Matt, and welcome..

Hi Kris,

I took some piccys of a snow covered country churchyard yesterday morning.. can't do that in 28° now can you... Nana nanana...

Cheers

Liam

Hi Amin,

I use Picasa. Simple to use, has a few basic tools included, that don't do a bad job if you haven't gotten around to getting a decent image program such as PS or GIMP, and free. I tend to create a new folder for each trip out, named something along the lines of "Lake District 15072008", so I can keep track of my images easily. In Picasa, all your folders that contain images (it automatically scans your drives for you, and identifies any image extensions such as *.jpg, *.PEF (that's your raw files) etc. and lists the folder for you). That's down the left hand side. The main panel thumbnails all your images.. including *.PEF. I find that particularly handy, as Windows doesn't 'see' raw files unless you use a plugin, which I didn't get to work. You can add captions to each image, and tags.. although I don't use tags..

It will also find duplicates, go to Tools | Experimental, and aparently it is stable.. again I don't use that.

It's free, and any changes made to a photo can be undone.. it holds a metafile with your changes in the same folder as the image. I always keep an original and work on a copy though, and I'd advise the same to you. Belt and braces..

You can also use it to upload to a blog, to your own web gallery, and if you want to make a new button for it, you can open the image you want straight into which ever editing program you want.

Like most here, I have 10s of thousands of images, and can find them when I want them.

More info here.. http://garmahis.com/software/picasa-3-new-features/

Hope that helps,

Cheers

Liam

Perfect analogy.. you won't get much change from £20-£30 for a Saturday out with the boys.. so miss 4 nights out, for each £100 you want to spend, and make a point about why you're in watching "Strictly come X-Factor" with her, quite pointedly..

She'd probably rather you spent the money on beer AND lenses, just for the peace and quiet..

Cheers

Liam