I sometimes find with mine that it won't focus if it is a long way off but a slight manual nudge and it kicks in OK.

It has never been much (any?) faster at focusing than my screw-drive lenses but it is almost silent.

Best wishes, Kris.

I have had the Tamron for eight days now and not one chance to use it in anger so to speak. I am hoping to either go walking or go to Cambridge tomorrow to give my 40 quid lens a go. Just snapping things across the kitchen hand held and in poor light it seems quite sharp.

Best wishes, Kris.

No doubting the OM1 is a lovely well built camera but comparing it to the K10D is a bit chalk and cheese. A bit like comparing an old mini to the new one, both lovely cars but utterly different. A fairer comparison would be between the OM1 and the ME Super or the MX which were also lovely pieces of engineering.

Best wishes, Kris.

We seem to have two takes on this thread: cameras that influenced photography (one for the history buffs) and cameras that influenced us.

In the former category would be things like the box brownie, the early Asahiflexes, the original Pentax (now known as the AP), the original Spotmatic, the Nikon F3, the Canon A1, the Sinar F, the Mamiya C330f and so on.

In the latter category for me would be: (1) the plastic toy camera I got in an "adventurer kit" at age 7 or thereabout. Took terrible photos with an awful light leak on one side but got me interested (2) ten years later, the ME Super. My first ever SLR, loved it then, love it now, although my original is now just an ornament (3) the MX. As I used the ME Super on manual all the time (the auto metering wasn't good enough for slide film) I was happy with manual exposure and liked a few of the other features. Got nicked in Paris. (4) the Olympus trip. I borrowed one for my Mum which she loved. Dead simple, utterly idiot proof but took damn good pictures. (5) my LX. Relatively recent purchase (2005) from ebay. Built like a tank, interchangeable everything (6) Canon Powershot G2. My first digital camera. Also built like a tank and plenty of features for real photography built into a compact (7) My K10D. I have probably taken more photos with this camera in 18 months than most of the rest put together. But then I have thrown 90% of them away which I didn't with the others.

The camera I hated the most was the Canon Powershot Pro 1. Cost me twice the K10D, focus was a slow as hell and useless in low light and died during the first season of the dig. I had gone into the shop intending to buy the G4 (or was it the G5 by then, I cannot remember) and was seduced into buying it. Big mistake.

Cheers, Kris.

Well according to Kim C that LX was worth about $3000 a couple of years ago! At that price I'd be afraid to take it out of the box let alone use it. I wonder if they did a FB-1/FC-1 viewfinder set up for it?

He has / had some nice kit. I like the idea of the Leica with a 43mm Ltd!

Cheers, Kris.

As regular readers will know I am always on the look out for bargains like this one [not!]

Cheers, Kris.

Yes, it is cheating and we all do it but like Spider I probably wouldn't have tried on that image.

A colleague of mine used to give his image class a picture of Avebury with lots of modern stuff in it. The assignment was to remove all the modern stuff and replace the missing standing stone. There were some pretty good versions!

Best wishes, Kris.

This photo has been accepted to the Pentax Gallery website, my first!

Now to pick some others for submission...

Best wishes, Kris.

Some nice shots there and a lovely testimonial to your father.

If it isn't too indelicate, some could be improved a little with a tiny bit of work. Mainly, lightening them up a little, and perhaps some cropping. The amazing sight of five Spits in a row would be better in letterbox, IMHO.

A really nice set of photos all the same.

Best wishes, Kris.

Still a bargain lens so I said yes second time around. Few annoying features like the front element rotating but seems to be fairly sharp. Perhaps I got a good example.

Best wishes, Kris.