Does anyone want this lens?

Yes, he lives locally.

Pschlute, I think there are two reasons for Canon’s move: the China factory is making entry level type cameras which are being wiped out by phones, and secondly Japan’s companies are pulling their production out of China and back into their home territory. I do not think this is a sign of trouble so much as a shift in the market to higher end products.

If retailers lose the means to sell new products what happens if I want to trade in Pentax equipment for a new Pentax lens, say? That cannot be done with this model unless visiting one of their “mall” outlets. All this must impact on the secondhand value of equipment which, seeing as I have rather a lot invested in Pentax is very worrying. Seeing that Ricoh don’t attend Photography shows any more there is now very little chance of actually holding a product and trying it out before buying, which to me is essential for a new body and some lenses. Coupled with an earlier announcement that there is no new FF body on the horizon I doubt that Ricoh is serving my needs any more.

Completely off-piste with this one but I thought this music video shot in our local caff a couple of years ago might resonate with some of the more elderly amongst us.
link

I would never buy photo equipment like this from Amazon irrespective of price, much better to pay a little bit more to a photo retailer with a physical presence and know that if anything goes wrong there is less hassle to get it sorted. If you see it in a well-known retailer’s page on Amazon then just contact them directly.

Like HarisF1 said. Photo 1 nicely illustrates something I read that trees ensure they keep space between their canopies to maximise access to light. Clever eh?

One last comment, the IR inspector told the accountant during my case that they fail to recover money from clever individuals so to get payment from someone like me, even if it isn’t fair, then that helps to even things out. As you can imagine the accountant was pretty taken back by such a sanguine attitude but hopefully it’s not typical.

Just survived a heartstopping moment on the phone to HMRC to sort out my self-assessment payment, but a little background if you would bear with me. A few years ago, thank to the combined incompetence of my mother's financial adviser and obstinacy of HMRC, they claimed I owed the equivalent of my life savings in tax on money I never received and court proceedings were pending. After two years of nightmares HMRC finally accepted I owed nothing, but when today the man at HMRC said that there was an anomaly on my account which he needed to discuss with a colleague and put me on hold you can imagine what was going through my mind. Actually, he said, good news: you don't need to pay your latest tax bill and in fact we owe you, so we are paying that today plus interest. How's that for the start of the New Year!

You should also consider lighting then, and I am thinking that if pixel shift is to be used then it would need to be led rather than flash, a bit of online research would be helpful in that respect. Here are some taken with a K1 with a 24-70mm f2.8 and pixel shift using oblique natural light: