Modes in my order of preference (on a K10D, your modes may vary )

Av
M (incl B for Astro)
TAv (indoor sports)
Sv
P
Green (for when handing it to one of the 3 or 4 people I actually trust that much who don't know the first thing about photography).

Don't think I've ever even engaged Tv mode, if my camera suffered from a fault which rendered Tv inoperable I wouldn't notice.

I used to use Sv a lot when I first got the camera, but since I figured out you can set the front dial to change the ISO in Av I just stick to that.



In response to the original question, is it cheating to use Windows or X11 to control your computer? don't you have more exact control with a command line interface?

If Av is cheating, you'd better install DOS 6, just to be safe.

if you want a "perfect" set, you'll have to cover all possible types of photography.

For that you will need more than one camera system, Pentax don't have a T/S lens, Canon don't have any pancakes and their pro bodies are huge....I could continue

the only "aperture ring bit" you should need with that lens on a K10D is "stick it in 'A' and forget it's got one".

If you're feeling really die hard old school there's nothing to stop you using the aperture ring in the same way you would on an M series lens, but it will just make the metering less acurate.

My *istDL2 will take well over 1000 frames on a set of Energiser Lithiums, and there's always CRV-3's if AAs are too fiddly.

I consider the Li-ION pack on my K10D to be a necessary evil TBH.

good idea John!

I've got an old Meteor you can sell if you can get me £20 grand for it!

a friend of mine flys helecopters (full size ones). I went for a pint with him on a day off during his training and he mentioned that he was at that time learning to hover. I commented that this was probably "harder than it looks", to which he responded "you haven't seen how hard I can make it look!"

In the grand tradition of aircraft which can do spectacular things, they seem to be spectacularly hard to fly!

The 100-300 4.5-6.7 is (or was, I don't think they make them anymore) the very bottom of the Sigma range. Sigma are capable of some nice glass, but it's usually best to avoid their budget offerings. Also f/6.7 is technically too slow for Autofocus to work. In general it would probably still work fine, but it'll be working outside its specifications and may not be as acurate.

In your position I would either wait until you can afford a Pentax DA, or if that's going to be too long then go for the Tamron. The Sigma APO is also a good choice, but IMO the Tamron offers better value for money.

If you can find one second hand there's also the Pentax FA 80-320 and FAJ 75-300. Neither is as good as the DA 55-300, but both quite useable.

I don't know of any side by side tests, but as far as I know the DA 18-55 MKII, DAL 18-55 and DA 18-55 WR all use the same optical formula.

If that's the case then they should be very similar or identical.

from ~ F8 onwards I would expect most if not all reasonable lenses to be diffraction limited

(for those with less knowledge of optical physics, I mean at small apertures the lens is close enough to perfect that the dominant factor in resolution is the size of the aperture rather than the glass quality)