you make the mistake of assuming that all ebay users have properly researched their purchases.

This is not a valid assumption

There seem to be a number of factors at work on Ebay at the moment:

1: A lot of people bought K100D's because they could be used with older K mount glass. These people buy almost exclusively A series and later glass because it's easier to use. The finish prices of A series and later lenses at least doubled when the K100/K10 came out.

2: A lot of people have discovered Ebay in the relatively recent past. Those people come looking for a bargain and they expect to find one. Especially in the field of 2nd hand photographic equipment, people don't necessarily have the information to know what a sensible price is. They tend to assume that if it's on Ebay, it's cheap, when in fact all it takes is 2 people who "must have that lens at any price" and it can quickly become very expensive.

here is my Dad, modeling one of the new Pentax Sport Optics straps.




Taken today with my K10D and Tamron 90mm SP macro on a 2x SP converter.

I don't think there is a better amateur level PTTL flash gun on the market than the Metz AF48-1. The only things it lacks are a dumb slave mode (to allow wireless operation with cameras which can't do wireless PTTL) and a classic Auto mode (to allow auto operation with pre-TTL cameras).

If neither of those bother you, buy the Metz. Even the dumb slave issue can be solved with a very inexpensive slave unit from Ebay.

There are good arguements for favouring Pentax gear, but one thing one should realise is that Metz make flashguns. It's what they do and all they do. They are very good at it. From that point of view, it could be argued that the Metz ought to be a BETTER gun than the Pentax own brand.

Mongooses I think, since it's not related to Goose. Although, I suspect the universe would implode if there was more than one of me

there are widely available adaptors to put K mount lenses on the canon EF mount, but not the other way around. The canon registration distance is too short.

or use photobucket to host your pictures. They write the img tag for you and all you have to do is copy and paste.

my *istDL2 has been out in the snow and shrugged it off without a complaint. I was a little more careful with it than with the K10D, but it did get wet.

note: don't try this at home kids!

I think you actually have to damage the front element pretty badly before it will show up in pictures, still not good though

no problem

BTW with regard to AF mode, I almost always have my 10D set on centre point only. That way it's easier to control exactly where the camera focuses. Most of the time you will want to focus on the eyes of the creature (be it human, animal, bird or whatever) being photographed.

Like all "rules" in photography, this one can be bent, but in general it's best for portraits.

if it's a colour problem, I suggest a different subject to demonstrate. Cats can make great photographic subjects but since your cat is grey and white on a white background it's quite hard to assess the colour reproduction.


If you are used to a point and shoot, you will find that the default settings from any good DSLR produce less punchy results out of the camera than you are used to. This is because DSLR manufacturers assume the photographer will want to edit the pictures post capture, so the default settings are designed with this in mind to give maximum latitude.

If you want to produce shots from the camera which you can just print right away, you will need to switch to "bright" tone, and probably push up the contrast and sharpness a little bit in the camera.

Most people here shoot in RAW and deal with the fine colour and tone adjustments later in the converter.