As regards the original topic, I agree that Pentax are highly unlikely to bring out a full frame camera for the simple and already mentioned reason that this would be incompatible with the lens lineup.

However, a happy compromise may exist; the Canon 5D MK IV uses a 1.3x crop factor sensor, and you don’t hear too many complaints that this is not a ‘pro spec’ camera.

I don’t see any reason why Sony or somebody else shouldn’t make a similar sized OEM sensor available, and it may just be that Pentax’s existing D FA lenses would provide sufficient sensor coverage.

See also: Panasonic's take on sensor development

I think this guy should forget all about a bridge camera and instead buy the bridge I happen to have for sale, going cheap-cheap relative to the purported description.

He sounds exactly like the kind of target customer I had in mind.

Aherm, have you tried comparing prices with the Tokina variant in a Nikon/Canon mount?

How about the 12-24mm?

Oh and it doesn’t matter whether you look at the US or UK, notwithstanding the widespread contention that the Pentax price hikes last year were greatly exaggerated in the UK.

But that is precisely my point; the basis of comparison appears to be irrelevant.

As I understand it, increasing ISO stops involves amplifying the signal from the sensor, which is a constant derived at the base ISO.

If you look at the Kx image output below the base ISO you are evaluating an - as it were – deamplified signal. In my mildly inebriated state I am uncertain whether that word actually exists but the point is you are taking away from the signal. It is by definition degrading it.

The solution appears to be simple; do not shoot below the base ISO on the Kx, whatever that may be.

It’s too late to read all that stuff tonight but are you sure about that?

What ISO was used for the respective shots? If the charts for the Kx were taken below the sensor’s base ISO it would be something of an apples to oranges comparison (as I understand it improved high ISO performance typically entails a higher sensor base ISO.)

Aside from the fees, also look out for jaw-dropping exchange rate spreads versus the relevant Visa rates; although results will vary by counterparty country, as an experiment it might be worth trying to send your daughter equal sterling amounts electronically and via a cheque her Irish bank can negotiate directly into euros with Lloyds, and comparing the net proceeds. In my experience the latter method can produce significant exchange rate savings, and the delay is on par with standard clearing periods in the UK. And of course the best way to minimise fixed costs is to send your daughter the largest amounts possible.

If you - or indeed your daughter - find any of these tips helpful you might like to support vital work fighting banker rip-off merchants; please send cheques in any currency made payable to the “Campaign Against Scandalous Handling-fees” (CASH for short) marked for my attention c/o First Bank of Lagos, Cayman Islands.

UK banks like to charge £20-30 per electronic transaction, (IBAN is just a way of stating the address of the receiving bank). The itemisation of such charges will vary according to the precise method employed, and frequently demonstrates considerable creative flair.

The only beneficiaries of such a transaction would be your bank; after wire transfer fees/fx dealing costs you are unlikely to net more than fiver -- if you’re lucky!

Indeed. Another flagrant and shameless act of anti-competitive practice.

In PCs they can do pretty much what they want since their market power is insignificant due to the measly market share.

However the iPhone is different; once the relevant anti-monopoly authorities get their heads around an appropriate market segmentation definition (hint: try handheld gaming device) Apple are going to come a cropper. And rightly so.

Not the secondhand ones. An IBM Thinkpad X31/X32 can be bought used but in pristine condition for well under £100 on eBay. For that you get a Pentium M machine with comparable CPU power to a dual core Atom that has - admittedly subjectively - the best keyboard around, which I personally attach great importance to. You also get Windows XP thrown in for free for those who like linux and use virtualisation elsewhere all for less than the price of a new OEM XP Pro license; who said markets were efficient?

For £200-300 you can get an X61 with a Core2Duo processor that you could run a Hackintosh virtual machine on (I wouldn’t try to install OSX natively on any old machine), and has more than sufficient processing power to be used as a desktop replacement for practically all ‘normal’ applications.

However, I think you need to consider your requirements more carefully; if you want something to actually do significant photo processing you should probably be looking at a different class of laptop altogether with a bigger screen. If you just want to back up raw files on the go pretty much anything will do.

It is also fairly easy to set yourself up to take advantage remotely of whatever computing power you have at your home base, with a fairly limited investment in time and effort. Pretty much all cheap off the shelf home routers can be hacked with a variety of firmware allowing you to do all manner of fancy things. I personally run something called dd-wrt on my router where I have set up a ssh server. That allows me to initiate a secure encrypted connection to my router via IP, wake on lan any hardwired machine and remote desktop in including to virtual machines via the secure connection.

The graphics rendering performance is more than adequate if you have a halfway decent internet connection at both ends, and for my usage I find it a huge advantage since it eliminates the need to constantly file sync between laptops and desktop. For this reason I have not found the need to set up shared directories/drives via the connection but I believe that is also possible.

In almost 18 months of using this set up it has only failed once early on, when I discovered the need to set up a scheduled job to reboot the router to clear out garbage having been locked out after two weeks travelling. If you want more details let me know and I’ll find some links for you.