I don't know the 50 or 48 and I make no claims to expertise but my experience with the 58 on a K10 has been fine, so hang in there.

You don't say what use you're making of it.

Mine was bought mainly for snapshot pictures of grandchildren at our house. After some initial experimenting I now leave the menus alone.

Flash is set on P-TTL The camera is in Av usually at f8 or f11 and on ISO 200. Flash is bounced off the ceiling with the reflector card deployed.

I find that the room and ambient lighting make a lot of difference.

One room has very pale walls and on a bright day there is a tendency to overexpose slightly. On a dull day or at night exposure is about right or maybe slightly under.

Another room is much darker in terms of walls and ambient daytime light. I find that there is a need to adjust exposure by up to +2. I also find better light if the flash is slightly forward of vertical.

I don't find it a big problem to adjust exposure (now I know the characteristics of the different rooms I do it automatically) and it's easy enough to take a test shot.

Me too.

When I used film I always bought from Mathers.

Have you looked at GraphicConverter? I use it a lot for its browser and batch converter but it will do a lot more.

Back in the 70s I was using a half-frame Olympus Pen D until my father-in-law gave me his 1967 Spotmatic and a few Takumar lenses which he could no longer manage after smashing up his right arm in a car crash. Over the years I got another Spotmatic body and some more M42 lenses.

Being a late adopter I didn't dip my toe in the digital water until 2006 when I got a Panasonic FZ7. A brilliant little camera it rapidly converted me but soon I wanted to return to an SLR.

Looking round at that time the Pentax K10 appealed on grounds of weather sealing, on camera anti-shake and ease of using old Pentax lenses. Handling is always important to me and visiting my dealer I quickly ruled out the Canon offerings. Some Nikons felt right but lacked the features already mentioned.

So the K10 it was which has done me well and continues to do so, though I fancy getting a K-5 II in the new year.

Any thoughts on best way to clean contacts?

I don't think I would take sandpaper of any gauge anywhere near my K10.

I had seen about using erasers (apparently Canon used to recommend this approach but don't now) but also a lot of warnings about using them.

What most seemed to recommend was isopropyl alcohol on a barely damp microfibre cloth or cotton bud.

I think more information would help the experts here. What sort of photos? Indoors/outdoors? Type of ambient lighting?

LED street lighting has a lot going for it but there are drawbacks.

Cut off is usually sharp so whilst there will be less light pollution it also means that once outside the lit area it is likely to be very dark indeed.

This will mean (eg) that drivers may not spot a child running down a driveway towards the road and neighbours will not see the ungodly prowling around your house. Any obstruction, such as a tree or parked car, will throw a deep shadow. It also means that when a lamp fails there will a very dark patch underneath it compared with what we have now. Should a local authority be tempted to replace existing luminaires with LEDs lighting will be patchy if the poles are not correctly spaced.

I have experienced dazzle with LEDs. We have one level main road through town which now has LEDs which are fine on the road itself but the very wide verges have become very dark. Another road is on a hill however; driving up you see the actual light source and it does dazzle.

Having seen a local trial area I came away with the feeling that, ignoring photographic considerations and for residential areas, well installed high pressure sodium lighting is hard to beat. On main roads I think I would favour LED.

There are, I believe it's achieved by mixing LEDs emitting light at different wavelengths to give the temperature required.

I can confirm John's statement.

I used to wear glasses for reading and these were often perched on the end of my nose. Teletext on TV was difficult to read but by lifting my head so the frame of the specs was just in sight the letters on the screen above it would become clear.