typical Sigma, if it werent for these compatibility problems I'd probably get the Sigma instead of the Pentax for the swivel. As it is, well the K10D with a decent lens is hardly short of pixels, I'll take the shot landscape and crop!

I've been looking at flashes recently, like you I started off thinking "I don't want to spend that sort of money on a flash" but it turns out that

A) the 360 is cheaper than I thought (see above)

and

B) the only non-Pentax flash with full (claimed) support for the PTTL only bodys (*istDL and K10/100/110) is the Sigma 500 which is just as pricey as the Pentax 360.

I'm with Mr Ist, the mirror is surface silvered so touching it with anything at all is A Bad Idea (TM).

Remember gunk on mirror or focusing screen wont show up on the pictures, and in fact I would have thought things on the mirror wouldn't even show up in the viewfinder since it will be out of focus, so unless its really major I'd leave well alone.

I have been setting the lens true focal length since this is what the camera reports when it can read the focal length from the lens.

It seems to work although one thing I've noticed is it seems to be better to over estimate than under. I have a 90mm macro lens and although the manual implies that the best setting would be 85mm I have found that 100mm works better.

If using a TC I assume you'd need to put in the FL of the combination, and this seems to work with my 90mm and 2x converter.


Interesting thought, This means that SR wont work properly using an automated TC unless that TC can change the focal length reported to the camera

I've never had a digital camera die on me through age (touch wood). My original Pentax EL100 died because I dropped it, but that is forgiveable.

In fact come to think of it more or less every camera I've owned still works. I had an old Hanimex compact which started scratching films but thats it. I must be light on equipment

facinating, now I REALLY want one of those

I have the KM Dimage Scan Dual IV, but TBH I would stump up the extra cash for the Nikon. The KM's image quality is fine but after a couple of years and a few thousand images it is clearly on its last legs, keeps crashing out on me so that I have to unplug it at the mains to turn it off. When it eventually dies I'll be getting a Nikon to replace it (I still use film from time to time).

Also dust is a major problem. I was scanning mainly old slides and used a blower brush to get the worst of it off, then basically picked slides we wanted to print and removed the marks manually in photoshop with the good old clone brush. I found the digital dust brush on the KM scanner pretty much useless, it degrades image quality slightly without really doing a lot to the dust. The Nikon has digital ICE which is supposed to be more advanced but I don't know how well it works.

true but its also more labour intensive, I did a lot of scanning for my Dad when I got my neg scanner and used to do one or two films worth per night while doing other things on the computer. Feed it another strip every 10 minutes or so and let it run.

I guess it comes down to whether or not you would be using, or at least close to, the computer anyway. If yes then the scanner will let you do the scanning without stopping doing whatever else you fancy, if no then the camera method is worth a thought.

so far my subjective opinion is that high ISO shots from the K10D have a similar level of noise to my DL2, but a different type if you follow my meaning.

There seems to be less blotchy colour noise from the 10D, and therefore what noise there is is more easily corrected in software.

The only thing I have noticed with the 10D is that it's noise performance under tungsten light can be disapointing. It has to seriously amplify the blue channel in this situation and you end up with a lot of "salt and pepper" noise on that channel. The best way I have found to deal with this is to do a median cut filter on the offending channel with a radius of about 2 before doing neat image or whatever your personal favourite noise reduction program is.

I have a Ricoh KR5 Super II which I bought in my early student days because I couldn't afford an ME Super or K1000 and the KR5 has a K mount. A fine camera provided you don't need accurate metering in low light.

I also used to have a Nikon Coolpix 2000 digi-compact which I eventually sold to my sister. A very nice little compact which took fine pictures even though it was only 2MP.

Currently my compact P&S is a Panasonic Lumix FX-7. Its Leica glass is wonderful, though its AF system does seem to get upset at long range as landscapes taken with it always seem fuzzy.