you can lead a horse to water.......

and of course on a K100 that lens would not only have AF but also SR.

Curses, I just put my favorite Christmas picture up in the photo gallery. Ahh well, heres another one

what a lovely sky, well captured

no luck here either, little sis is ill in bed so Christmas is postponed. About par for the course for 2007 TBH

If you can't get 1/30th at 50mm, then either your SR is not working or your technique isn't good enough. Here is a brief description of my technique. I have been shooting rifles since I was 9 and this is an adaptation of my off hand rifle technique. My current record is 1/8th at 200mm, so it does seem to work, at least for me.

Hold the camera as lightly as possible with the thumb and three fingers of your right hand. The shape of the grip should make it possible to apply almost no pressure without risk of dropping the camera. With your left hand, support but do not hold the lens. AF really helps with this since your left hand has nothing to do except support. If you must use MF, then again use as light a grip as possible.

Brace your elbows against your chest. Take two deep breaths, and let the second one about 2/3 out before holding (as Chris said, holding your breath at either end will introduce shakes). Very gently increase the pressure on the shutter button until it trips and "follow through", that is to say, don't move or even release the button for a short time after the shutter closes. Done right, the shutter should catch you slightly by surprise when it goes off. If shooting for REALLY silly shutter times (like the1/8th at 200 mentioned above) I shoot on continuous drive and let 3 frames go off before I release. The middle one is usually the best.

Hope this helps, it takes some practice but it works for me.

I agree Chris, as a rifle shooter I can usually beat the rule of thumb by at least one stop myself, but as I said I know nothing of how steady our new friends hand is.

1/4th is something on the order of 4 stops from where you'd expect to be able to hand hold without SR with a 50mm lens.

I don't know how steady your hand is, and that obviously makes a difference, but 1/4 second at 50mm is asking quite a lot. I think Pentax only claim 3 stops for the system on the K100D, that would be about 1/8th.

see I thought about that, even got as far as considering dismantling an old Pentax EI-100 which I have lying around, but I don't think there's space behind the film plane without extending the back of the camera.

There's a test reported on www.pentax110.co.uk which has the System 10 24mm outperforming a Zeiss T* 50mm.

The 4/3 sensor is roughly the right size, slightly the wrong aspect perhaps, but it has the right crop factor.

ooo you have the proper carry case, nice

my system has to make do with a lens pouch, but since it doesn't come out very often it doesn't really matter. I have the body, 18, 24 and 50mm lenses and the big flash. I used to carry it as a party camera at one point because it starts conversations nicely with anyone who has the slightest interest in cameras, alas the film and processing are now so hard to find and expensive that mine hasn't been used in many months

It is supposed to be possible to reload the carts with cut down 35mm stock, but I've never tried it.

for those feeling a little poorer, my Dad just bought a Metz 48 AF-1 and it is the buisness. Great results so far, bounce, swivel and Wireless all for £169.

We have the 58 at work and it seems the only functional differences are a little less power and no secondary flash on the 48.