My Dil has that sony...Takes nice pics...As for the lens she didn't get one...and I wonder myself if buying a telephoto/wide lens is worth buying for P&S... Anybody have opinions or ideas on this?...don't hear much about p&s lens... Juanita

I went to the nearest camera shop (36 miles away) and found out that although Pentax touts the camera as being compatible with Pentax k series lenses, they are not compatible with ones for the Pentax K1000. The Pentax K1000 is a completely manual camera and all my lenses (obviously) are manual, not automatic. While the lenses fit, you can't take photos with them. If you have Pentax lenses which do have an automatic setting, some of them will require you to do manual focusing (some don't have auto focus) but at least the camera will allow you to shoot with it. So...in the long run, I'm not so sure I did so smart a thing...too bad that nothing I read made this clear. Certainly the operating manual doesn't cover it either. I can handle focusing myself, but the lenses I used on the K1000 don't work at all.

Got up at 5:30, darn race didn't start until 8, they said 7 on one of the news websites. Had to get there early enough so I didn't have to park too far away, people everywhere all over town. Hot already but not as bad as I thought. Here I am telling you what to do and my photos did not turn out too great. I shot sports mode, buildings & background were bright but runners too dark, many blurry or out of focus, many good and fixable. I am going to have to process each one that's worth keeping (shot 594) and brighten most of them up with shadow highlights. Good learning experience. I shot most in sports mode which kicks into burst, but I'm not happy with a lot of today's because I can't change any of the parameters in that, picks too large apertures and too slow shutter speeds and continuous auto focus I'm not used to at all. It is hard shooting a sea of people, never been in a situation quite like that before. I'm thinking about what to do next time, couldn't figure out how set burst so I could use tv mode standing out there with all those people, should have shot tv mode, 1/800, ISO 800, partial metering. Maybe. I'll have to get some help with that. Coming home, I was trapped in by lots of street closings, had to go way out of my way to find a way out of that maze, lucky I know my streets around here, only one way out from where I got myself. Filled two 1 gig flash cards in about 1/2 hour! Good timing though, a few stragglers were coming up the hill when both cards were full. I'll wait for your photos. Yours will be easy. I know people steal photos. I haven't caught anybody doing that to me yet, maybe mine aren't that good? Somebody in France liked my peacock java applet and wrote and asked, I said ok. What do I care? I just don't want people making money off my work. Will address some of the other issues later. Too bad you have to break up your lily garden, that would be very hard for me to do. You must be either a specialist or have special lilies and maybe getting older like I am? Granny out shooting a race. Hah! I wonder which lens would be best for that? Used 50mm with a different race, much smaller, this time went with the 28-135 so I could zoom. 70-200 not wide enough even if I had it which I don't. That is a conundrum for sure since I was so close to most of them standing on the sidewalk, brushed by a few, tried not to get in their way. Then some other photog gets in my way. There now you taught me something about bracketing. I've been doing it the hard way. Shoot, look at histogram, set exposure comp or some other adjustment. I'm going to try bracketing and quit on the bright end like you do. So thanks for that tip! I dared not shoot that race in AV (my favorite) because with the early morning bright light and shadows, it would have picked too slow a shutter speed. Frustrating. THIS is where I would like to have been positioned lol. She hadn't turned her camera toward the race yet, she had to swing it about 45 degrees to her right to be pointing at the runners coming up the long hill. I fixed this one a little. Later, Alice

I have a 300mm fixed focal length lens I use for that kind of shot. With your camera you have a 1.6 factor with the focal length of lenses so it will really be about 480mm. Same for any other lens you might use other than lenses made just for digital cameras only. I shoot with a 30d canon. The addition of an extension tube will reduce the range you lens will focus at but subjects within the range will be larger. it's kinda like using a close up lens with no loss in the quality of the image. I really don't know why more people don't use extension tubes and you hear little about their use. I use the tubes with all my lens and with the 50mm; normal or 80mm with the 1.6 factor it is great for flowers, bugs, snall items for e-bay like coins,stamps etc. Google extension tubes and see if you can find some site that will show you whan it will do. I have two 25mm tubes and you can find them at bhphotovideo.com for about $70.00 ea. Go to a local camera store in your area first and see if they have any and will let you put one on your lens and see what it does. John