Well in my case it would be truly absurd if the man who came to operate the camera was German as I only have three words of that language - hold on 6 words so maybe there's a chance.

Having used Leicas for some years with B&W film as that's all I could afford then I think Leica have made a good tactical move to appeal to the sentimentality of people like me. If you've never used or handled one then you can't understand why Ken thinks he could be tempted. Personally I find the camera I cannot mention to have a very similar feel to it and it performs the B&W role extremely well from camera so would fulfil Ken's desires. I know Leica has a special place in photography but it seems odd that another marque that delivers 95% of the Leica functionality cannot be named while a variant on the M9 can.

Eh? The Fuji X100 cost me 600 quid and is worth every penny if only for sheer raw quality and an optical viewfinder. Did I get my sums wrong?

But the Fuji X100 can offer mono only and also has some swanky sensor that does it better than other marques so I can't see how that's different to discussing a Leica camera and technology.

Just out of interest and to get back on topic which Pentax model is proposed with this feature?

Mike

I would (and did) save £5400 and get a Fuji X100 which is quite amazing. A simple RF style camera which can function rather like the Leica you refer to. The quality of the images certainly gives my K5 a run for its money and the quality of the JPEG out of camera are quite gorgeous although I usually shoot RAW. Malo69 (for those with longer memories) has one and he loves it and takes the JPEG out of camera which he thinks have a quality that exceeds that of the Pentax JPEG out of camera.

I used to travel light with K5/21 Ltd but why would I bother with that now I have the X100 and its f2 lens?

I believe the X100 sensor is also different in some way but I just look at functionality and results.

Mike

Anyone for a Fuji X100 in B&W?

Anyway Ken as a moderator you should delete your own thread as it discusses a non pentax product.

Don't get seduced by the idea of a Ltd to the exclusion of other lenses. I had the Tamron 17-50 and can say it was a superb lens on my K20 but quite big so I stopped using it (and sold it). I had the Sigma 30/1.4 which is a good length but I didn't use that as I had the Pentax 35/f2 which was a superb lens on the K20 (so I sold it). Any of those lenses were fine for street.

I also have the 21 Ltd and 70 Ltd which I find are most used on my K5 as the K5 seems to love the 21 more than the K20 did. They are great lenses and so small and light but the 35/f2 is also very good. I have a 50/1.7 A which I don't seem to get on with very well and if I need a 50 I use the quite bulky Sigma 50/2.8 macro that I have.

Any lens is Ok for street I find. As has been said very eloquently above it's your mental attitude that will get the good shots not so much the kit.

Once again I use a lot of words and haven't really helped at all!

Basically if you want small lenses then the Ltd's are great. If you don't care then I expect the Tamron 17-50 is the better choice.

Mike

I am VAT registered but no employees and I just have a simple Excel sheet for recording time, income and expenditure. The one accounting program I did get on with was DACEASY but someone bought them out years ago. One thing to look into is a flat rate scheme for VAT as it makes your record keeping requirements much simpler.

Mike

For all that's good and Holy don't use that most dreadful of products QuickBooks. They seem to have little appreciation of accounting practices and from a software integration point of view it's an appalling mess. You can't have two version of QB on the same PC for development.

Having grappled with it with a client I can see no merit in it whatsoever.

Then again I suppose I might have been having a bad 6 months or take a look at the user forum.

Mike

@transit - I think the 70 is much smaller and I got a new copy when they were £300 so no contest. Gorgeous lens. Very versatile and so small but still f2.4 which is really pretty good. How often do you really want anything wider at that focal length when the DOF becomes very small?