No contest, Pentax DA 16-45mm, or possibly the new DA 17-70mm, or definitely the DA*16-50mm.

There are numerous types of fungus and some, but not all, can be removed. The excretions of fungi vary in the damage that they can do to the coatings.

Here is an excellent description of fungus and their effect.

I'd take John's advice, and wait for a better example, or look at the 77mm Limited lens.

If you are going to move to Pentax then you'll have the advantage of having the choice of some outstanding optics. All of the lenses, including M42 screw, ever made by Pentax can be used (with some limitiations) on all of their DSLR bodies.

The K20D body has got to be my recommendation. Mine will arrive this week. The K20D has the facility to 'tune' the AF focussing mechanism for each of up to 20 (I think) lenses.

I have a large collection of Pentax glass and I've had some problems with focussing on the K10D. Basically, my tests show that each of my Pentax AF lenses needs a different focus offset. The K20D handles it, the K10D doesn't. The K20D has a 14+Mp CMOS sensor and costs circa £650, the Nikon D3, although it's full frame, has around 12Mp sensor and costs circa £2500.

It's a Froghopper. They spend their larval stage in 'Cuckoo Spit'. Basically, they blow bubbles and surround themselves in a protective layer of small bubbles, resembling spit.

Lilly, you really must get to grips with technical terms.

The "wee plastic thingy" (assuming you mean the white plastic card) is the catchlight panel.

Maybe I go back a bit further than some of you. Have a look at these babies. My first introduction to . . . computers?

The earliest (SADIE) was programmed using a number 60 drill and tinned copper pins passed through the hole, soldered both sides. It's memory . . . was a 1024 bit delay line.

Sorry, way OT now, but a lot more interesting..

This is the manual you need. The password is "Pentax", no quotes, case sensitive (capital P).

The middle power switch setting has a little dot below it, next to which is the magic word 'wireless'. You set the power switch to that mid position for wireless use and to the extreme right for on-camera use.

When the power switch is set to wireless, the slider below becomes effective and sets the wireless mode. Master, Controller, Slave.

I found a couple of times that my flash wasn't pushed fully in to the hot shoe. I suspect you did the same.

I guess it depends on whether or not you want to actually produce the final print. Too much work to my mind.

Why not take a look at www.redbubble.com ?

I've had a 1Tb WD Mybook (non-NAS box) for best part of a year. I'm about to add a Netgear ReadyNAS system to my network. It has 4 x 1Tb drives in X-RAID configuration (Smart RAID 5 if you like) giving about 3Tb of usable storage.