The end has accelerated recently - it wasn't that long ago that it was announced that digital cameras were outselling film - now it's 15 -1.

I have been pretty much fully digital for some time although I had kept my Rolleiflex 2.8f for "special" pictures.

The end came when I sold that to part fund my iST DS.

6 or 7 years ago it would have bought three iSt DS (at today's price) but of course then a 6MP DSLR would have been 10's of thousands of pounds - if it had existed.

ho hum - progress eh.

I take more image snow than I have at any time in the past - as far as I'm concerned digital is a good thing. And with the DS I no longer need to chase technology.

Blue,

I was worried about pre-flash and before purchasing my 360 I e-mailed Pentax UK asking if you could manulaly set "normal" TTL.

According to Pentax UK, no

Thank you for your e-mail. The AF360FGZ flash will revert to P-TTL when used with the istDS. This can not be set to TTL.

Kind regards,

Stephen Sanderson

In TTL mode the flash "reads" the camera and if it is P-TTL capable, it sets this, if not, it sets normal TTL

Presumably it will work in "normal" auto but I don't know if you can use htis in high speed mode.

Fortunately, for my needs this is not a problem as the pre-flash is close enough to the main flash not to ruin the expression on the kids faces (or whatever) - I am not however a professional.

Mike,

Personally, I'd look to a 6 colour Canon - one of the Pixma range is the current choice. I have a slightly older S820 and I'm delighted with it. A lot faster ands quieter than the Epsons.

Can be iffy on non-Canon inks (can't they all) but fine on Fuji multijet paper (cheap at www.7dayshop.com).

I always use Canon Easy Photo Print to actually print (from the Pentax or the Rollei) although I still tweak images in PSP9.

I'm not a lens design expert but I always understood that this is normal - most so called "zoom" lenses should properly be described as "vari-focus". Very few lenses are "true" zooms.

I stand to be corrected here.

Dave,

My DS also comes from Jessops (also price matched to Park Cameras) - Westminster Branch at Strutton Ground.

The kit was all cellophane sealed but we opened it in the shop to check for the voucher, it wasn't present. There was a voucher on display on the shelf behind the counter and I insisted on claiming that one.

Pentax sent the cheque in about 10 days.

I'd take this up with Jessops. I wouldn't bother about trying to get them on the phone lines listed in their "storefinder, I'd go to head office switchboard (an 0116 number if memory serves)

Ted,

This refers to the size of the digital sensor - it's the same size as APS film rather than a 35mm frame.

This explains the focal length mulitplier (1.5x) when used with lenses designed for 35mm.

The lenses don't obviously get any longer but for experienced 35mm photographers it provides a point of reference for the amount of "reach" of a lens.

If you don't know what 80mm or 135mm or 200mm "means" in field of view terms then it's actually irrelevant.

John,

I haven't done this but I'm sure I read somehwere that using live preview (on a compact digital) you can just point your telly remote at the camera and operate the remote. You will see the red light if it can "see" IR

Presumably you can do the same thing with a DSLR except that you'd have to actually take a picture - it's not as if you'd be wasting film.

Of course there is no such thing as "correct" metering anyway.

Do you want do see the details in the shadows and blow out the highhlights or the other way round.

These are exactly the same choices that photographers have been making for many years - at the point of exposure there's only one shutter speed and only one aperture ( I think the latest HP compacts can actually vary the exposure between parts of a scene -now there's the future of photography no need to worry about "dynamic range any more)

In the meantime we get it mostly right and correct in the darkroom by dodging and burning or in the computer with levels and curves.

On the whole, given that you can't save a blown highlight, I'd rather my DSLR tended towards underexposure rather than over - and I like the fact that the LCD can show the blown highlights in review.

Incident metering helps to get it right first time - I always used my Weston with invercone with my Rollei TLR (unsophisitcated metering anyway) but that's fine with slow and considered photography. For the modern world - my high speed kid for example TTL metering is a boon.

Having said all that, I would say that my iST DS doesn't generally underexpose by a whole stop anyway - 1/2 a stop if that.

That aspect ratio difference has changed my viewpoint (sic) as well .

As others have said, a slight "lift" in Paint Shop Pro certainly helps many images.

Jessops are good like that.

I remember buying a Kodak DC240 from them (a long time ago) that came with a paltry 4Mb card but had a 16Mb card in the camera itself. 16Mb was terrabytes in terms of the "olden days"

I don't find card speed a problem with the DS as the buffer is reasonable in normal (family) usage.

It's significant on my otherwise excellent Rollei DR5100 (a Ricoh Caplio GX clone) where the write speeds are woefull and every little helps.