I appologise for the tone but not the content of my earlier post. If you're going to post inflamatory remarks about a Pentax model on a Pentax forum you really do have to expect people to respond.

I have run 20+ films through my 110 since buying it ~5 years ago and can promise you it is capable of results far in advance of my megre photographic abilities. It gives all the advantages of an SLR system in a package the size of a 35mm film canister.

Some companys insisted on building some very silly little "rangefinder" cameras, but they were no match for the Pentax and Minolta small format SLRs.

Sure, I'm badmouthing something I've never used, but I know I wouldn't like them so it's ok right?

If it's lens sharpness you're after the System 10 24mm was rated sharper than the Zeiss Contax 50mm of the same vintage.

Poor film support cripples what is otherwise an amazing system, I would be using mine today if it were not now virtually impossible to get the film. The carts are re-loadable and you can cut down 35mm stock to work just fine so if I was in a position to develop my own I'd be using it left and right.

If you don't like it, don't use it, but don't slag off what you've never used.

while that statement is true, it's like saying a Golf GTi is a small hatchback.

I'd rate GIMP as comfortably the best photo editor under £100, though I should qualify that by saying I haven't used Elements since version 2. Still even if the latest Elements can match GIMP for functionality, it certainly wont touch it for value.

for most of my photography a tripod simply gets in my way. It makes moving around hard, and by the time it's set up the subject has long since re-located out of range of my camera.

I use one for posed portraits, astro and still life. Otherwise, its hand held with SR on all the way.

bizarely I have this problem only if I DO use Uniross Hybrio batteries, standard NiMH's work fine in my DL2.

I did have a similar problem a couple of years ago which turned out to be my battery charger, have you tried borrowing a friends charger?

Well my sister isn't 12 anymore and I can't afford Ben, so I guess I'll just have to hope the situation doesn't arise

If you process from RAW with UFRAW, you get the option to pick a second RAW file to use as a dark frame. This way the subtraction is done while still at full 12bit colour depth and before the bayer matrix conversion.

Iris is another useful piece of software, but it takes a lot of getting your head around. Free and very powerful, but hard to use.

it's worth sticking the 16-50 on the MZ-6 and seeing how it does, I know the 16-45 and 18-55 are both full frame from about 24 onwards so you may find you can go just as wide on film as you can on digital.

all of the above, more or less whatever is in front of my lens at the time! I tend towards wildlife and insects for preference though.

I like the shot a lot, the stitching isn't bad for Microsoft although you can detect the joins in the sky it certainly isn't obvious.

I'll stick with Hugin, which is also free, but it's always worth knowing what's out there.