The proposed cards for the UK will contain an RFID chip.

At every turn in the last few years the UK government has proven itself incapable of storing sensitive data about its citizens in a safe and secure manner. Any and all information the government holds about a British citizen is likely to end up left on a train at some point, so the only sensible course of action is to limit the ammount of data the government has about you as far as possible.

A law abiding citizen in a state with a trustworthy government has nothing to fear from an ID card scheme, but we don't have a trustworthy government.

If you want enough focal length for the moon, a telescope is the cheap option! My 4.5" Newtonian cost me £120, I can't think of another way to get to 1000mm f/9 for that price. Even my Dad's 8" cost something like £500, not even Bigma money for 1000mm f/5.

fat chance, with a decent laser printer it is now possible to produce paperwork around 100 times faster than you can possibly fill it in.

and 2 out of the top 3 are not Canikons. Anything which helps to break the myth that there are only two SLR manufacturers is great, and if Pentax come top thats even better

Agreed, but don't worry, between us I think there's at least one person on here using every possible combination of software from the very very expensive to the very very free.

Any specific questions, just ask and someone will help you out!

a quick completed listings search reveals three Pentax SMC-A 28mm lenses have sold recently, for between £56 and £67. I'd say £112 is rather over the top!

I don't remember the exact source so I could easily be wrong, but I was under the impression they were making the colours by colouring the plastic. It's cheaper to produce all the cameras on the same line and change the plastic being injected into the moulds than to colour individual cameras was the claim.

Pentax have been re-using their iconic names since the start of the K series, it didn't take a genious to figure out the origins of the name K100D. I agree it's a shame to "waste" KX (which IIRC was top of the range?) on an entry level camera, just as it was a waste of the name "Takumar" to designate entry level designs in the A and F series era. There isn't a lot that can be done about it though, we live in a time when this sort of marketing sells.

You're getting it! there's a lot to learn but you're obviously trying hard and you're getting there.

28-200 is indeed the focal length range. This is a "one size fits all" lens from the film era. Because the 35mm film frame is larger than the sensor in a current generation Pentax DSLR, lenses designed for film cameras must have a longer focal length. 28mm on film is about the same as 18mm on what is known as an APS-C DSLR (the sensor is the same size as an APS film frame, approx 2/3 the size of 35mm film).

Whatever you do, don't fall into the trap of thinking that the focal length of a digital lens is somehow different to that of a film lens. The lens doesn't know or care what you project the image it creates onto. The reason for the difference is all in the size of the sensor, effectively you are cutting out the middle 2/3 of the film negative and printing it with a higher magnification so as to make the final print the same size.

As you will observe, the 28-200 starts from mid way through the range of your standard 18-55 zoom. It then keeps on zooming right up to the longest setting of the 50-200. This makes it a more versatile lens in the sense that you have a massive range of angles of view available without changing lenses, but there are downsides.

1. The optical design of a lens with such a long range is VERY complex. Tamron are actually among the best at this sort of lens, but even so it can't match the quality of a zoom with a shorter range, or better yet a prime.

2. Long range zooms tend to have smaller maximum apertures than is desirable.

So what is aperture and how does it relate?

Simply put, the aperture is the hole in the lens through which light passes to get to the film/sensor. There is a diaphragm inside the lens which allows the size of the aperture to be varied at will to allow more or less light into the camera. Now, long ago someone figured out that it isn't the size of the aperture per se which matters for exposure, but actually the ratio of aperture size to focal length. Aperture size divided by focal length gives you the focal ratio or f/ number of the lens.

Lenses are generally rated on their maximum aperture. The kit lens, like most consumer grade zooms, is an f/3.5-5.6 lens (max aperture f/3.5 at 18mm, f5.6 at 55). If I recall correctly the 50-200 is f/4.5-5.6. The more expensive DA* 50-135 is f/2.8 throughout its range.

These numbers may sound like they are picked from thin air but they follow a scale whereby each "stop" lets in half as much light as the one before it. The usual scale goes:

1.4, 2.0, 2.8, 4.0, 5.6, 8.0, 11, 16, 22, 32

by convention they are writen to 2 significant figures, and of course you can have partial "stops" in between.

Aperture has other effects on the image, but I'll let you digest this bit first.

I doubt the accuracy of that list anyway, according to it the Pentax Auto 110 Super was introduced 2 years after the last lens for it was discontinued.

that doesn't seem likely to me.

Edit, I just re-read the list and actually it doesn't give lens discontinued dates at all, they are all date introduced.

but that should benefit the K-7, not the K-x.

Anyway, to be comparable any noise images surely must be taken at the same shutter speed and aperture under the same conditions