Gamka - as I work for a courier company, we have to register with HMRC for this service, hence I can access the info. I don't think it's a good idea to trust an overseas seller with the duty/vat payments unless they clearly state to the carrier (TNT, UPS, etc) that the goods are being shipped FREE DOMICILE. That way, they have a clear duty to be responsible for making the payment to the carrier, and you won't get lumbered with a second set of charges.

LOL!!.. You've got me down as the Pentax World's answer to football's STATTO!!

£377 will attract vat clawback of just short of £76, based upon 20% VAT.
The same amount will attract 6.7% import duty (based on the HMRC tariff number of 900219 00 00 (Lenses / Other / Other) being used), thus an additional £25.26 is payable. An admin fee for clearance is then added - the rate varies slightly from place to place, but typically is invoiced at around £15-£20, so the final bill should come to approximately £500 (as you correctly calculated). Note though, that the fact that free P&P is being offered, the shipper will despatch this via the cheapest means possible, opening things up to an element of risk (getting lost in transit), with possibly no real way to track and trace the shipment. For a wee bit extra, they may be able to ship this with a reputable courier company, but check with these companies to establish what their clearance fees are.

Horst - here in the UK, VAT is charged based on category. For example, children's clothing is VAT-exempt, although it's payable on adult garments. It makes no odds whether the chargeable item costs one penny, or £1 million - vat is still applied. Having said that, any chargeable item below the current threshold of £15 being imported outwith the European Union is usually waved through, as it costs more in admin than the revenue it generates for the treasury. Mind you, all imports are scrutinised so that (as an example) a Pentax-branded lens declared at under the threshold will draw quite a bit of interest (checking for previous import history) to see if you are a regular importer of similar low-priced goods. It is usually the importers' responsibility to prove that his nice, shiny Pentax lens did indeed cost £14.99!! If it is a "used" (HMRC typically define "used" to mean any item over 6 months old, and has previously been used), then you only need to prove that you purchased said lens from the buyer at £14.99.

Bottom line is: unless the item is at least 60% cheaper than UK prices, by the time you factor in the duty payment, import admin fees, VAT,shipping costs, etc it's not worth your bother. Note though, that CAMERA BODIES are duty-exempt, although you will still have the other add-ons to pay.

John - I suppose I'm being a bit of a moaner, but BT Yahoo offered Flickr as an "added-value" to their package as an incentive to being a BT subscriber. Now that they've ended their partnership, perhaps I should end mine with BT.

I've just gone to log in to my Flickr Pro account today, and a pop-up advised that I'd have to migrate my photos across to a Yahoo account, as BT no longer supported Flickr. I duly done so, and find that the account is downgraded to that of a standard user. In order to maintain PRO status, Yahoo wants me to pay them $50 a year for the privilege. Given the recent tinkering of settings and features on Flickr (which became a source of irritation in itself), this has really brassed me off! As a result, I've deleted every last one of my photos from the Flickr site, and terminated a (needless) Yahoo email address. Next on the agenda is to tell BT where they can shove their broadband services.

Now, is it just me, or are any other PU members suffering from "grumpy git" syndrome because of this?

As a sort of "side issue", this idea might work slightly better if it was incorporated into some sort of "Flickr map" where, not only do you have the general location (town name should suffice, or in cases where users live in large cities, something along the lines of Glasgow West / Manchester South, etc), but any photos posted here could perhaps use a geo-location metatag so that if any user perhaps fancied photographing a location they'd never previously visited, the image(s) would pinpoint where to go to shoot similar photos.

I agree with JR's analysis of the Pentax brand as ergonomics go. Pentax is the only camera I've experience of that fits the hand like a glove. Holding other cameras just feels awkward and "boxy". If it doesn't "feel" good in the hand, then I'm not interested. Another thing in Pentax's favour is that, whilst the "sheep" will go buy a Nikon or Canon simply because of the high-profile advertising, and/or because they have been recommended those brands by "a friend of a friend", Pentax's relatively low-profile makes me feel a bit "unique" in that respect. The fact that IQ from the Pentax range of cameras is also excellent goes without saying.

I use Nero - not a free program, but simplicity in itself to burn a disc. If you firstly drag and drop the .MOV file into Nero Recode, you can convert the .MOV file to any other movie file, such as AVI, MPEG2, MPEG4, WMA, and even MKV (MKV is the standard used in BluRay discs). Once the file is converted to the quality-level you want, simply load the converted file(s)into the "create video disc" section of Nero Express.