Now remodelled on the website so it's easier to read for phones, tablets and the like: http://www.sandehalynch.com/books/100bw/index.html

It's a link to a new online book on my website: Everything Belongs Here




Everything Belongs Here: A Sketchbook of Wales is a compilation of 100 black and white film shots taken in Wales over the past ten years. I've always used a wide range of cameras, so there's a mix of rangefinder, TLR, SLR and LF, but 10% of the images were shot with Pentax cameras. The accompanying text is a mix of geekery and personal observations.

If you enjoy it then please pass the link around.

Panic over. All your suggestions made me think further about possible causes, and when an HP systems check failed to complete in eight hours I then looked at the Nvidia Control Panel.

"Other applications control color settings"

Oh really, how come? Well, howsabout if I let Nvidia control its own business - then I can rack up the brightness, maybe.

And so it was.

Which other software might have been controlling the brightness I don't know, nor why the brightness should suddenly have taken an overnight dive. But one click brought it back to life.

Many thanks for all your thoughts !!

Thanks John. I have a laptop I can hook up and an older monitor, so I'll test with both tonight.

How do monitors die? My two year-old HP 2010i has suddenly decided to darken, as if hit by a half-power switch. Is this what monitors do when they die?

North America wouldn't be the same without their 'quaint' 16th century expressions.

Ah good. Yes, that's a problem with mobile Internet sometimes.

Did you miss my post about the battery?

Just fly with the door open.

It's been so long since I used any of my M42 gear that I'm selling some on eBay.uk this Sunday and the next. One of the reasons for the popularity of Pentax throughout the screwmount era was the quality of the coatings and the smoothness of focusing, compared with a few other brands. And you might say, why settle for less!

The Helios, and other Russian lenses, are good lenses, sometimes. But the Meyer Optik range are equal to the Zeiss (IMHO) and never seem to have the Zeiss sticky focus problem that sooo many old Zeiss lenses suffer from. Grease that turns to soap!

The only two M42s that I'm keeping to use on my PK bodies are a Zeiss Biotar 58/2 and a Meyer Orestor 100/2.8. Both good, no excellent, portrait lenses. They usually go for a price these days.

I think you'll find that the SR45 (Maplins) will serve for a Spotmatic with a small rubber spacer to keep it in place. At worst you'll find that the meter underexposes by one stop - but it will be consistent.

Here's a link to one of them ...
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/230659960714?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m...