Fields lie fallow one year in four (it's a farming thing).

Things have certainly changed since 1971.

Oman is particularly interesting, and while many things must have changed since 2000 when I left, I'm sure that in the south, near the Yemen border where most of these shots were taken, you'd still find the same range of ethnicities and cultures, and an enduring politeness. A shame, in my view, that 50% of the population are virtually invisible, but then as a teacher I got to know a few of the girls quite well.

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These were all taken with either a P30t, an ME Super, or an MZ-5. No Limiteds back then, but with small camera bodies not even the 200/4 seemed particularly intrusive.

Oops, I've almost hijacked the thread!

Absolutely right. But then when travelling I've generally found more cultural similarities than cultural differences, so the same would be true in a street in the UK.

I was in Oman for four years and one incident sticks in my mind. Out in the countryside photographing camels and roundabouts one weekend, a gent shouted at me not to shoot while he was there.

He had to shout because he was over a hundred yards away.

It will be interesting to hear how you find the FAs. Will it be, "What's all the fuss about?" or "How did I manage without them?"

And, dedicated film users apart (like the Lomo brigade), most people can do that with their phones these days.

The Q does look like a neat stocking filler, but I hope they done their marketing maths right.

LOL. As the heart surgeon said to the motor mechanic when asked why his salary was so high, "When I work on the pump I do it with the engine running."

Fine lens and compositions. Lighting will help.

Order of actual use:

1. FA 43/1.9
2. FA 77/1.8
3. FA 31/1.8

(Order of preferredness not always the same. The 43mm sits on my K-7 semi-permanently, while the other two are mostly on film bodies.)

4. P/K-M 200/4
5. Could be any of the others that don't often get used.

Hopefully the spring didn't break while it was on the camera? I've had the spring unscrew and had to remove the mount to free it up - nasty job. This is why some people remove the springs if they have lenses that are stiff enough to stay in place. It's a flimsy piece so I'd seriously suggest you get a new(ish) genuine Pentax adapter.

Relative to income, photography has become much cheaper for the average person over the last fifty years, let alone the previous fifty, even taking into account the digital revolution and the seemingly high setup costs. This was the main issue that the OP was raising, I think, even though the thread title was "Film Versus Digital". The cost factors of the past ten years do seem to differ from before though, as the 'arms race' of software and hardware take a toll on the pocket.

That also happened through the nineteen fifties and sixties as well, at a slower pace, as improvements in lens design could show off the qualities of faster film emulsions, and improved films (especially colour) demanded better lenses. Lens to sensor the equation is the same, and a lens like the Pentax Limited 31/1.8 is an example of that. It came out before the first commercially produced Pentax DSLR and prior to the K-7 (I forget who originally suggested this) there wasn't a sensor available that could show the lens's true potential.

There are possibly better lenses now to use on the CMOS sensors, as well as being a wider choice of focal lengths. Which brings me back to the thread's title, and the admission of being a bit of a fetishist where lenses are concerned ... among the many rational reasons for using film, one additional reason is that you cannot get a digital sensor behind certain lenses. There might be similar lenses, since Planars for example appear on both 6x6 cameras and interchangeable 35mm lens mounts. But not the same. And there aren't many quality triplets or doublets available for 35mm - let alone Petzvals if you want to be really esoteric. If you want to use one o' them, then you're pretty much stuck with film.

And as Jetsam suggests, some film users like the tools and the workflow as well as the output. Myself included.

Oops, sorry.

That page looks like a sensible fix.