King of the Mountains

I spent a fair chunk of Saturday adding marker posts to a nearby unsurfaced right of way. I did this as part of a volunteer effort drawing its members from several groups, the posts and permission to install them being provided by the local County Council.

The posts are intended to point users of the right of way in the right direction, as there are tracks wandering all over the open moorland area in question. Only one of these tracks is the proper right of way, the rest are off limits to motor vehicles. 

There seem to be two sorts of illegal user. There are those who know that it’s illegal, couldn’t care less, and will quite possibly resort to aggressive behaviour if challenged. There is little that can be done to educate these morons beyond taking a few covert photos and reporting them to the Police, who take a very dim view of their antics and can seize vehicles belonging to repeat offenders. It isn’t "telling tales", these idiots are the reason for our lanes being shut.

The second and more common sort are those who are simply not aware that they are doing anything wrong. They believe that it’s ok to ride an unregistered quad there because "it’s public land", or that they can drive wherever they feel like because their mate told them so. Quite often, if approached with a firm but friendly word, they’ll listen and be educated. If they’d fallen in with a reputable club they would probably have done the right thing in the first place. But again, their ignorance risks closure of our lanes. They aren’t usually members of any group and don’t therefore see any of the guidelines published by the various organisations.

One of the greatest problems is how to educate these people. In my part of the world the local press are very anti-4x4, although I suspect that this has more to do with them enjoying stirring muck and selling papers. As a result, the chances of getting any articles into there are slim indeed. Broadcast media simply aren’t interested, especially as the problem involves some knowledge of rights of way law and needs a greater attention span than that of the average mayfly. It also involves rural areas, where we don’t have chain coffee shops and their 3G phone won’t work. Handing out leaflets may help, but the worry is that most of them will end up in a hedge somewhere and of course they only reach the people to whom they are handed.

Those of us in the sensible laning world will always do our best to get the message around and lead by example, but there’s nothing we can do about the lone wolf types who either don’t know or don’t care about the law. A good move might be to run guided laning trips and festivals in the same vein as the recent Heart of Wales Walking Festival, if we can face down the inevitable bobble-hatted nonsense-mongers. But again, the ignorant probably wouldn’t turn up.

Not that this would bother us, as we’d simply go laning. But it would be far better if we could educate just a few in the proper way of doing things.

If, like me, you’ve just bought a digital SLR camera then you may well have picked one that can use older film lenses. First, a caveat: Not all can do this with equal success. You may get some slightly unpredictable results. In my experience Pentax are fine, but I can’t comment on others.

With that out of the way, some advice on buying lenses. Older lenses can suffer from dust or worse fungus inside the lens. Check for both, and don’t pay top price for a lens with either. I would personally avoid any fungus-afflicted lenses as there would presumably be a risk of transferring fungal spores to the mechanism of the camera.

Dust, providing that it is not in ridiculous quantities, doesn’t affect image quality hugely. You’re unlikely to see noticeable blemishes in your photos but you may notice a loss of sharpness. If the lens is cheap, then it’s probably worth a go. 

Never be tempted to try to remove dust by dismantling the lens. Unless you’re a trained technician with a clean room then you will make things worse rather than better! 

Obviously you should check that the focus, zoom, and aperture rings move smoothly. It can also be worth checking for excessive oil or grease on the aperture blades. 

If you buy your lens from a good camera shop then you shouldn’t have any trouble with these. However, buying online can be a bit of a lottery. Some sellers will provide plenty of photos and assurances that the lens is dust and fungus free. In these cases you should have little trouble with gaining a refund if the item is not as advertised. If you’re interested in 28-80mm or similar zooms, then try searching for film SLRs that are being sold with one. The camera is usually worth next to nothing in an internet auction, so you can buy it solely for the lens. 

Do your research before buying. Some lenses don’t attract much interest at all, quite often because another similar model is a far better performer for similar money. If you can’t find any information on a lens then caution is advised. It may be great, but then again it may be a complete dog. There is, however, considerable entertainment to be had from buying the cheapest lens you can find and playing around with it. While it won’t be useful for serious photography any strange effects it has could well result in some interesting images.

I’ve had my Km for a couple of months now, and shot around 500 images.

The Km is Pentax’s budget digital SLR camera, borrowing its name from a 1970s vintage mechanical SLR. In the rest of the world it sells as the K2000, again a name partially borrowed from that photographic icon the all-manual K1000. I, like many SLR enthusiasts, started with a K1000 aged about 14 and still have it. 

First impressions are good. The camera feels solidly put together and has a pleasing heft to it. Pentax have used a metal chassis rather than the plastic commonly found in lower end SLRs. It’s surprisingly compact too, in the tradition of the old M-series Pentaxes. Controls are well laid out and labelled, to the extent that I’ve only needed to consult the manual in order to find out things such as how to print directly from the camera (more on this later). Those who find some cameras too small for their hands to operate easily will like the Km.

A major advantage of the camera is that it can be as easy or as complex to use as you like. Select Auto Picture Mode and your grandmother could take good photos. Select Manual and you’re back with your old K1000. It is also possible to select from the usual auto modes for portraits, landscapes, night, shutter/aperture priority, etc.

Serious enthusiasts will probably switch off at this point, but another handy feature is the ability to tweak the auto modes. For example, as delivered the camera will pop the flash up and use it as it sees fit. A quick stroll through the menus and you can safely take photos in areas with a "No Flash" sign, as it will only deploy if you press the flash button. 

The camera includes image stabilisation, which does wonders for reducing camera shake. In the old days, if you could hear the mirror raise and lower (a clatter rather than a click) then you knew to expect a horrible blur when the film came back along with a smug little note about camera shake. With the Km, you can take astonishingly good photos in low light. A brief test with the camera hand held at dusk produced an image with only slight blurring. As a useful side effect, the camera can also agitate its image sensor to shake dust away. This can be set to happen automatically when you switch on. 

Continuing on the subject of dust, there is a very neat option in the menu to check for dust on the sensor. Simply point the camera at a uniform light-coloured surface, follow the instructions on the screen, and you will get an image showing whether there is any dust, and if so, where it is. Another option locks the mirror up to allow access with a puffer bulb. For obvious reasons you should never touch the sensor. So far, the self cleaning seems to work.

As with most digital SLRs, the large LCD on the back does not act as a viewfinder. It displays the settings that you have chosen. It is possible to take a preview image in order to check things such as white balance, and review photos. The screen also comes into play when you use the built-in image editing software, which is a lot more useful than you might think. It won’t replace a photo editing package on a computer but it will correct problems with brightness and colour intensity, as well as offering some neat digital filter effects.

This came in handy when I decided to try the Pictbridge function. For those who’ve not encountered it, Pictbridge is a standard allowing digital cameras to print images directly when connected to a printer supporting the standard. I tried it with a spare Canon iP90 and got excellent results, although I did have to use the built-in image editing options on the camera to bump the brightness up a couple of notches. Obviously this is an expensive method of printing, but for a few photos it is easier than copying them all to a computer and printing in the normal fashion.

Battery life is much better than expected. The same set of AA batteries that came with the camera are still in there and show no sign of expiring. A paper manual and CD of photo editing software were also included, although I have yet to try the latter.

I bought my Km in a kit with an 18-55mm zoom lens, which is a perfectly acceptable bit of kit. As the camera uses the existing Pentax K mount it is possible to use any K mount film lens, although for obvious reasons you may want to restrict your purchases to ones equipped with auto focus. I have tested mine with 28-80, 35-80, and 100-300 zoom lenses, all of which produced fine results. Unlike some other DSLRs the image stabilisation mechanics are in the body, so you can fit these older lenses and still enjoy the benefits.

In short, if you already have Pentax K mount SLRs, or simply like the sound of something a bit more advanced than a compact digital camera, the Km is well worth a look.