If you can put up with the slower speed then this is certainly the case, I love mine to bits and if I do ever upgrade it will only be because I want more speed.

sorry I can't help you lens wise, but with regards to the body I saw an MZ-7 go for about £35 on ebay recently. The MZ-7 has the advantage of both an aperture ring coupler (so can use M series lenses in Av mode with no penalty) AND aperture control from the body if you want it.

Those as have them don't often sell, but if you can get one, or it's upgraded cousin the MZ-6, it is just about the most versatile Pentax film body from the point of view of lens compatibility.

can you write to the card from your macbook?

could be that the card has packed in, if so I think the sandisk ones have a lifetime warranty so you should be able to get a replacement.

I have a no-name NP-400 replacement from 7dayshop (the £6.99 one). It has no markings which might reveal its maker, but it is a 1500mAH like your Hahnel. I have not been able to detect any difference in run time between it and the DLI50 which came with my K10D.

I would expect a Hahnel battery to perform at least as well, I've had some of their NiHM AA's in the past and they have always been superb.

Hi Stevo, I've got one of these and the answers are

1) no

2) ~2 inches on zooming to 200mm and a further 3/4 Inch on focusing to 1.1m (minimum focus

I don't have a measuring device to hand so those are rough, but the lens slightly less than doubles in length when fully zoomed and at close focus.

I couldn't agree more, I think they should have put the good viewfinder on the K100D to give us a true replacement for the DS. As things stand K100D vs *istDS would be quite a difficult choice from my point of view. If the K100 had the 0.95x finder then it would be a no-brainer.

I suppose they were looking to cut the K100Ds price right back so it can compete with the likes of the Nikon D40, and to look at it from that angle the K100 still has a much better finder than anything else in it's class. I guess Pentax thought that was enough and they'd rather have a really good entry level offering than another "inbetween" camera like the K10D.

Don't get me wrong I think the K10D is a superb camera and excellent value, but I think it is hurt somewhat by being compared all the time to either the D80 and 400D (which it has easily outclassed, but which are cheaper) or to the D200 and 30D (which are arguably slightly superior, but more expensive).

lol yes, you caught me. Not for a while though, used to use it to co-ordinate attacks in a massively multiplayer strategy game called Planetarion.

MSN recognises /me sometimes too, can't remember if the current version does or not but it's been in and out a couple of times.

you're a luddite

/me hits gonzo with a trout

sorry, the kipper was asleep


seriously though, I understand your concern but it certainly doesn't seem to have been a problem so far

the K100D with 18-55 is £298 from SRS microsystems.

Honestly I don't think there's a lot of point getting the K110D, even if the SR system on the 100 packs up, all it's going to do is stop working (the SR that is) and if you're using it as little as you think you will then you'll probably never notice.

One more think to bear in mind with K mount lenses, which you may or may not already have picked up, is that the DSLR's lack an aperture ring coupler. This means if you use lenses before the A series, you have to use them in stop down metering mode. This works pretty well on the *ist and K100/110, all you do is pick your aperture and hit a button to stop down the lens and take a reading. Still something to be aware of though.

SR is most useful at telephoto, but it has one or two other benefits. I was able to take wide angle shots of a waterfall at 1/4 of a second without a tripod this easter.

All depends upon your outlook on using a tripod I suppose, I hate the darned things so the fact that my K10D's SR system means I almost never need one is a major bonus.

have you taken the 1.5x crop factor into account? the 18-55 on a digital behaves (more or less) like a 28-70 on film. Your 28-70 on a DSLR will have an angle of view equivalent to roughly 43-105.

when you turn the camera on with SR on and an old lens mounted, it presents you with a menu asking for the focal length. You enter the focal length and shoot away. This works great with primes, not so great with zooms since the FL changes.

yes, there is a little switch on the back to turn it on and off. No downside to having it that I am aware of, unless you ALWAYS use a tripod in which case it's just "one more thing to go wrong".
yes, except that if you don't have it you can't turn it on
Yes, SR is the only difference between them. Some vendors are trying to sell the 110 at more than the 100 because they have 110's left which they bought ages ago at a higher price. The 110 doesn't sell well because the 100 has never been much more expensive and has SR.