if it's going to have video, it had better have a mic jack.

I still have no interest in a video feature, but if they've done it I hope they've done it right.

I believe there can be problems with some of the REALLY long or fast aperture russian mirrors, but the "normal" ~500mm F8 ones are fine as far as I know.

My Centon T mount one was fine, it was a terrible lens, but physically it fitted fine.

I should point out that the 700 frames I mentioned above is so far, the batteries show no signs of weakening.

At my previous job I took over 1100 frames on a *istDS on CR-V3 batteries before accidentally leaving the camera plugged into the computer overnight, which overrides the auto-shutdown and drained the batteries.


I have a set of Hybrio batteries and I must say that I've never noticed any real difference between them and the 7DayShop 2600mAh batteries I had before, however my experience in this matter seems to differ from almost everyone else so it may have something to do with my rather cheap charger.

I hope you'll forgive a potentially stupid suggestion, but isn't that just normal shift in colour temperature as the heron is in its own shadow while the rest of the scene is in direct sunlight?

On the subject of batteries, my *istDL2 has taken on the order of 700 frames so far on a set of Energiser Lithiums which I installed last October.

NiMh's are great in terms of long term running costs, but if you want pure longevity and the knowledge that when you pick the camera up it WILL have juice in it, Lithiums are the way forward.

I would have thought if one were prepared to pay for such a lens, Zeiss would be prepared to make it in whatever mount Sir required

and don't forget, you can still use M42 and K mount glass via an adaptor in stop down mode, in case you should feel the need for SMC.

have fun with the new toys

I think at one point Pentax made a pan focal lens which was fixed focus, but not recently.

Fixed focal length is what was meant I feel

That's a K-m, the main control dial is on the wrong side.

IIRC Pentium class CPUs have a design life expectancy of 10 years, so anyone running hardware that old should really be prepared for it to die at any second.

That said my Uncle has a 286 machine which has been running 24/7 controling an experiment in his lab since the late 1980s, so some machines do defy all reasonable expectations.