Chiffchaff is the best I can come up with for the fist one.
The second bird looks like it could be a Crag Martin.

I think sports 'togs prefer the higher continuous frame rates and faster focusing systems. I'm not sure that Pentax lags behind on focusing speed any more since the introduction of the SDM lenses. Frame rate could still be an issue though.

Faster & longer lenses are also in a sports photographers armoury.

Your shots show that 300mm lenses on an APS-C sensor do the business though. Well done.

Question to Mike_P: Why do you remove all metadata?

TonyM, as I said, it's functionally identical to the AF540FGZ. It'll do P-TTL, wireless master/controller/slave, the whole 9 yards.

I have the Samsung badged 50-200m and it is certainly a small and light lens. I also have a Sigma 70-300mm and I value the 300mm end more than the 70mm.

I suppose it depends on what you intend to take pics of.

They are very similar in the max aperture specs. the 50-200 being 1:4-5.6, the 55-300 being 1:4-5.8, slightly slower at the long end but not enough to make very much difference.

The 50-200mm weighs 260g, the 55-300mm weighs in at 440g, almost twice as heavy.

£177 is a bargain and it'll work fine on the K10D. It is functionally identical to the Pentax AF540FGZ and probably made on the same product line(s).

I have two of the Pentax 540's, one made in Japan, the other . . .

. . . yep, China.

I think you'll find that www.photodo.com already provide this info.

That's surely City & Guilds?

I did a C&G course over 40 years ago and got to play with some very exotic equipment. Gandolfi monorails and the like.

Go for it.

ISO: The front and rear e-dials are programmable and either (I think) can be set to adjust ISO.

When in M(anual) exposure mode, normally you'd have the rear e-dial set to adjust aperture, and the front, shutter speed. In this case, pressing the OK button on the back changes the front e-dial to ISO adjustment.

Avoid any MZ bodies where the model number ends with '0' (MZ-50, MZ-60 etc.), they have what is commonly referred to as a 'crippled' lens mount. This effectively prohibits the use of older manual lenses.

Both the MZ-6 and MZ-7 are capable cameras. The MZ-6 is perhaps the most modern, short of the MZ-S, and can use the P-TTL/Wireless flashes.

With patience, you can find good quality later film bodies on ebay at reasonable prices. I recently picked up an MZ-6 for £36.00, they typically sell for around £60.

Welcome Ian.

Rawshooter is a dead product, Adobe bought the company (Pixmantec) for their technology and incorporated it into their own product, Lightroom, which is now at version 2.2.

If you bought a full copy of PhaseOne's CaptureOne LE V3.x software, they include one free version upgrade so you could move up to V4.

Both Lightroom and CaptureOne LE V4 can deal with Pentax PEF's from your K20D.

A relatively inexpensive alternative to these two is Adobe Photoshop Elements.