Bargain yes Brian, but not until I've actually got it in my hot little hands. I've heard nothing from the seller yet and I've asked if I can collect. Fingers crossed it's not a scam . . .

When I have got the FA, and its OK, I'll put my SMC Pentax F 100mm 1:2.8 Macro on Ebay with a suitable reserve and very similar BIN price. Look out for it if interested.

8MP in which format. I get 20Mb - 30Mb TIFFS from my .PEF raw files.
DL focussing may be slow, I have no first hand experience of it. My D however, is lightning fast and they are still available, but you have to look hard. If not available new, they can still be acquired second hand. I just bought one today on Ebay with FA 100mm 1:2.8 Macro for £450. Pentax still repairs them, I had one repaired last year for £125. It had a serious fault, Pentax UK repaired it, and I had it back in a week. If you can't be without your camera for a week if/when it breaks, buy two or three.

Oh, and there's no need to count the pixels. The box and the manual and the Pentax website and every company that sells them can provide that info.

You haven't actually mentioned what it is that you are intending to buy. Making a comparison of Pentax offerings with the Canon (sorry for the swear word) 1DS MkII is hardly fair and you'll probably end up with a permanent stoop if you have to have one hung round your neck for very long.

I sold a 20D to a friend a while back and had the opportunity to try it out. The very first thing that struck me was its weight. Pentax DSLR's are much lighter than other makes and models that it is all too often compared with. The possible exception is the Canon 350D, but you need to be a midget (no disrespect intended) to hold one.

With it's battery grip, my *istD is perfect for me. It feels good, it's controls are sensibly placed within easy reach, its well balanced and it's affordable now. Even with 2 sets of batteries, one in the grip and one in the body, it weighs about the same as a 20D without grip.

With all that said, if you are going to be selling your images to a stock house or agency and they are demanding no less than 8MP, Pentax's current line-up will not do it. The D replacement will, when its released. 6.1Mp is enough fo me, as an amateur, and it seems it's enough for some of the professionals on this forum too.

Then again, maybe the 645D will suit your needs . . .

What is your definition of a mid-range DSLR as you percieve it ? Mid-range in what particular characteristic ? Capabilities, price, support, repairs, sensor size, range of lenses available ? Can you be (much) more specific.

DR-DOS became a competitor to MS-DOS and was succesfully killed off by a 'dirty tricks' campaign which later cost Microsoft $100,000,000.00 in damages. By then of course, DR-DOS was dead.

I seem to remember that Xerox's Venturer Publisher had one of the first graphical interfaces.

Absolutely true John. To take that a bit further, for a few hundred quid Almost anyone anywhere can sit down and MAKE a PC to run the Microsoft Windows operating system and applications. The PC architecture has made high powered computing accessible to a huge number of people. When you consider that all you need is a handful of components, a hard drive, floppy (optional), CD/DVD writer, motherboard, CPU, memory, and a case which generally includes a power supply. Job done, oh, then you load the OS, and you're up and running, just about. OK a few apps need to be loaded, but that's it. You might choose to put a better graphics card inside but other than that, simplicity.

Not so, the Apple MAC.

Nowadays you need very little hardware as all the 'tricky' stuff is all onboard. All you need is a screwdriver to put it all together and no knowledge of electronics. In fact, if you buy wisely, you can't even get any connectors the wrong way round any more. If I had a fiver for every floppy cable I connected the wrong way, I wouldn't still be connecting floppy cables

Just about the most difficult part of building a modern PC is getting those darned front panel connections in the right place, and the LED cables the right way round.

Don,

I make my living from selling, installing, and maintaining computer hardware running Microsoft operating systems and applications. My feeling is that Joe Public (and corporates for that matter) thinks that Microsoft has too much clout now and will steer clear of any attempts by Microsoft to 'muscle in' on such technologies.

That said, if the manufacturers endorse it, we'll have no choice. I somehow think it'll be a while (if ever) before their offering overtakes JPEG as a defacto standard file compression. Escpecially as most of the pro imaging world seems to use Apple and Adobe technologies.

My own opinion is that Microsoft should direct their energies into making rock solid OS's, office productivity, and development tools and leave consumer technologies alone (but they're not going to listen to me). I guess now that they dominate desktop computing (and I will not listen to any argument that says they don't. Accept it, they do.) they are looking at what else people have on their desktop connected to a PC. IE: Phones, cameras, et al.

I don't think that such a technology monopoly is very healthy for the consumer, us. If, heaven forbid, Microsoft went bust . . . it doesn't bare thinking about, but it is possible. 'The bigger they are . . . etc', some very big worldwide corporations have gone down the tubes, Microsoft is not immune from a very big fall. OK, its not likely, but what if . . .?

For info, a 67mm clip-on lens cap from Pentax UK is around £4.40'ish and a 67mm PH-RBL petal hood is a staggering £27.00+ . . . and they charge £8 for shipping and handling. How on earth do they ever expect to sell small parts at those kind of prices and postage? Perhaps they don't want to.

[quote="bretbysteve"]Check out item number 7617894117[quote]

And insurance is an extra 0.80p

I've come across this guy, he buy's cheap and sells expensive.

I've sold a fair bit on Ebay and recently got a Neutral feedback based on my delivery time, one day late after the Easter break, and £8.50 postage. The item was my much loved Takumar 70-210mm, my first ever Pentax lens.

I don't remember the actual postage cost but it was around £4 + some pence. The guy had the cheek to give me neutral feedback without making any attempt to contact me during or after the auction. I'd actually made a mistake and priced the postage for one of the 1.2Kg Sony PTZ modules I've been selling recently. I'd have been happy to refund some of the postage, but not now.

Truth is, if you've sold on Ebay you'll know how much time is involved in the whole process. I'm one of the unfortunates who's had my local post office closed so now I have to drive into town, park, pay the arm 'n a leg parking fee, etc. etc. and it all costs money.

I'm not defending this guy fototrader at all because I think his main source of income is from Ebay and he ought to have a pretty slick operation, but the costs involved with Ebay's fees, Paypal fees, and the time, materials etc. for small items like lens caps just ain't worth the trouble.

Welcome Philip. I have to ask, Genesis . . . Phil . . . nah, can't be. Could it?

Beautiful.

The only way I get to see that much water around here is by finding a Thames Water road crew . . . fixing a burst pipe, and they aren't nearly as pretty.

Very nice pic, I particularly like the patch of sunlight at lower left. Some of the water looks a little washed out, but that's probably being over-critical. There's a lot of green showing through the water. Is that natural vegetation ?

Congratulations, Niagara next ?