Hi Gwyn,

£450 is the 'average' discount price here as well with most of the big retailers selling at £479 with kit zoom. It's only SRS who are showing a low price and that is only in the last few days,..they were asking £429 (body only) before that.

It would'nt be quite so bad if one was sure of longterm fixability but with the constant introduction of 'bigger and better' every year the chance of economic repair becomes less likely,...these are probably disposable cameras now. I've already been thru this with camcorders,...had three in the past ten years or so,..all different makes and all failed within a couple of years and were 'not worth the cost of repairing'. With mechanical cameras one could usually get a decent repair and/or I was able to repair my own cameras. However, when it comes to electronics (never mind computers!) I basically understand 'ON & OFF' only so no chance of taking it apart and recognising anything inside.........

The prices of many items in the UK are, frankly, an outrage. Essentially we are 'ripped off' at every corner.....

I would like to aquire a K10D and may well do so but need to get a better price than is currently available in the UK, bearing in mind that it is now an obsolete camera and will become 'junk' sometime in the next year or so with no resale value and possibly no viable/cost effective repair options.

The K10D is available in the US for $500,...thats a touch over £250.

The 'best' UK price is at SRS and is £399,....that's a touch under $US 800

Typical of the 'problem' is the price of Photoshop,...Adobe has a policy of charging the same digits in either pounds or dollars,..despite the fact that there is usually about two to one so they sell PS here in the UK at TWICE (or very nearly) the US price!!

'Focus' is a useless show in a horrible venue.... It's been deteriorating over several years and is best avoided......

The last time I went I did actually wonder if serious photography had a future in the UK due to the attitude of both punters and demonstrators.

If theft is a big problem then perhaps they could drop prices to be in line with the rest of the world instead of nearly twice the US prices and they might find a better minded set of customers.

It's not surprising that Pentax does'nt bother,..why should they? The cameras are going like 'hot cakes' and the lenses are like rocking horse sh*t.

One of my memory cards is apparently failed or failing.......

It's a 'Sandisk' 1gig card which is nearly full having about 80 RAW images but now I can only access the last 12 files.... It's a new(ish) card and this is it's first use.

Has anyone got any info, advice or methods to retrieve the other 72 files please?

Anything with 'Centon' on is usually sh*t........

The best mirror lenses are the Russian (actually Ukrainian) 'Rubinar' lenses in 300mm f8 and f5.6, 500mm f8 and f5.6 models and also 1000 mm models. these lenses are available in various harware configs including military quality and macro versions at amazingly low prices. Optical quality is good and those rebuilt by Hartblei in Czech Rep. are excellent.

Older good mirrors were made by East German Zeiss for pentacon camera,..the 1000mm was military quality and used on the wall for looking at the west and also by Bunderswehr for looking at the East,...but, you need a trolley to move it around.....

I know this has been mentioned on this site before on several occaisions but, what is the currently perceived wisdom of buying form the US...??

Amazon.com are now offereing the k10/kit zm for $725 with a rebate return of $100 dollars.

Amazon UK price is £480 which equates to more or less $1000...!?!! And, of course, there is no rebate from Pentax UK

Beach cameras are offereing at $625 with $100 rebate,...ie, about £300 with another £50 off...?????!!!!!!

I know that the rebate is not obtainable in the UK but what is the 'bottom line' of buying from the US? At least the rebate could go to a good US charity and the price is still not much more than half the UK price.

Has anyone purchased from the US please?

Best UK price is SRS/Park cameras but these are only a bit under Jessops (£480) at about £440,...still a MASSIVE $900+

If you can't source the pukka hoods, these are a fast, practical and cheap alternative.

There are no affordable wide primes,......this has always been the problem. There is only the VERY expensive 14mm,...if you can find one as they are like the proverbial 'rocking horse sh*t'.

The only practical game in town is the Sigma 10 - 20mm zoom which is considerably cheaper than any prime and gives reasonable quality images.

There probably never will be any wide primes for APS sensor cameras as the market is about to change back to full size sensors and all makers will be obliged to follow with the possible exception of Olympus/Leica/Panasonic. We will know on January 24 if pentax is going to go full frame in 2008. It does seem possible this time as the rumours are of another ground breaking Pentax main body.