Don't think any of the things you have been asked to do are excessive or not described in the rules imposed by the airline or the air port. Of course, you can't take a tripod on board and everything else must be in the one piece of hand luggage and that must be within a certain size. Just read the rules and comply, no problem and at least you know your life is being taken care of.

P.S. Would have thought the excessively elderly were as likely as anyone else to be a suicide bomber, may be even more so.

Impressed with the overall colour and detail of both the body and the lens.

Also impressed with the first shot, that is fantastic and shows the bird at his best.

Can't get much EXIF up on the shots can you give me any idea of the distance and lens settings? Thanks.

Would have been pleased to have taken either but I too will go with the second although I think the main subject is a bit sharper in the first.

In the second I would have preferred the sharpest area to be the head but it is only just off and the rest of the shot is great. Perhaps selecting the eye and sharpening that alone would be a tweak worth trying.

I am in no way particularly knowledgeable in technical matters so please ignore me if you think my comments are nonsense

Danny you certainly have to pay for the privilage of having that body a few weeks before the rest of us. Do hope you have time to answer your own questions as well as ours.

Think at the end of the day I realy only need to know it is an improvement on the K20D which until a few weeks ago I thought was the best ever.

Seems I am well suited to the camera I chose, but then we all knew that anyway.

Thank you re lifting from the video, you can from a normal video camera usually having to de-interlace but the shots are not of good quality but then I doubt that a 3CDD video camera takes the same quality shots as would a stills camera. Think the answer is I will have to wait and see. Mind your 5FPS shots look very interesting to me and that may well serve my purpose better than lifting from video.

Would be interested to know if you can lift individual frames from the video and if you can how good/bad the result.

Well, no it is fine on lens and the exterior of the camera, good to blow round the lens mount area and the lens when you change them, if you remember and there is not a rare animal dancing in front of you.

Some will tell you that using a blower will blow the dust further into the camera others will say it is fine as long as you hold the camera upside-down, mind you I can't see the logic in that as fine dust does not fall when blown it will take to the air and land when it runs out of energy.

I have gently blown my isd but I am not going to do the K20 will buy some other sort of cleaner and will read others opinions with interest.

The only problem I have is the deer is in the wrong setting or the house has a deer in the way. The shot of the deer on the front lawn does have a novelty value but I would prefer it in a woodland setting.

I am not technically experienced enough to comment on that but to me is looks a workman like job and it is only the composition that does not entirely please me.