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Sigma 70-300 APO. I just bought one, its fine. Far better than some of the old Minolta non APO and sony kit lenses.

I use an A350, I bought a cable release, a remote wireless release, a Pentax eyepiece magnifier, lots of Hoya filters, a Seagull angle finder, all no problem. I did buy the cheapest angle finder on ebay which was rubbish but the Seagull is OK. My experience with ebay sellers is all good. You get what you pay for buy branded if you can.

I just bought a Minolta 3600HSD flash which is brilliant. The wireless operation is great don't mess around with a flash that doesn't support ADI and Wireless. I don't need the power of 42 or 56 so the 3600HS was a good buy for me. The hot shoe design is much more stable than other designs so I would recommend using it. I only use an adaptor for a spirit level.

Have you looked at dyxum for info?

Minolta are responsible for the funny hot shoe, It was introduced a long time ago.

I looked at your gallery. The indoor shots don't need a new camera or lens. Just try to be more selective and also practise shooting in continuous mode and throw away the duds. I don't see any problem working at it can't solve. The pics look fine to me.

Phottix Wireless remote on ebay are very well regarded.

The Sigma 70-300 APO Macro takes the Sigma Achromatic close up lens very well you can get very close and up to nearly 1:1. The close up lens was made to match earlier Sigma lenses which did not have built in Macro. They still come up from time to time. Much better quality than ordinary close up lenses. If you buy a close up lens make sure its Achromatic lots of them are simple magnifiers.

I have used Hoya CPL and been pleased. I find the very cheap filters give a colour cast. I used Tiffen ND grads and found them very good. In diffuse light the effects can be small. The effect is only strong in a very limited area at 90 degrees to the sun.

When I recently changed to an LCD monitor I was amazed at the image improvement. It took a few weeks to get the brightness down to a level which matched my prints. I could not believe that 25% would be correct, Contrast is 60 %. I was getting dark prints because my monitor was too bright. Even now it feels bright but if I put prints next to the screen I am happy with the match. I have used software tools and not bothered with a Spyder, if you are printing for yourself exact colour truth is not important.

I think if the 800si is the same as 700si you can have the Image size lock with xi lenses. You lenses track the in focus image to keep it the same size. This has to be the easiest AF system yet.

Some of the wireless remote controls have times and multpile shots built in. I haven't looked closely but you could probably use one or these.

Mike you don't say what shutter speed you are using. SSS doen't fix everything. If it is the non APO Sigma they are a little soft. I have a new Sigma 70-300 APO and its a very good lens and not expensive. I expect Richard will say soft at 300 f5.6 but inside its limitations its a good lens.

Thanks for all this information. I have used 4/3 system up till a couple of months ago.So I know the issues with old lenses. I was just worried about the optical quality of the converter with glass. I know the plain ones lose infinity focus but I thought someone might have a good word for them MD lenses are very cheap. The Dandelion focus confirm adaptor is OK for 4/3 where there is no catalogue of AF Lenses. The MF Zuiko Lenses are very good and retain infinity focus with an adaptor. I still have one or two M42 lenses I might try one of these at some point.

I just bought a Maxxum 50mm 1.7 AF to try with extension tubes.

Funny Olympus flashes have the same weak spot. The new shoe design for Minolta was supposed to address this weakness. I guess all hot shoe flashes are weakest at the most stressed point. Robert has a good point good job the camera is OK.

If you have Nikon Lenses buy a Nikon D300 and save yourself lots of hassle and time. I used a dedicated slide scanner and a Minolta 700si for several years. I eventually got tired of the the scanning hassle and now have a Sony Alpha. I should have done this years ago.

I use a 10-20 Steve and find it a great lens. I don't think the number of blades has any serious effect on sharpness.My experience tells me that the Sigma is very sharp for this kind of lens. Your comment about less sharp than your prime lenses explains the problems with this kind of lens.

Seems to me Richard that as I said some time ago the A350 is a very good camera. It needs good glass, much better than the 18-70. The lack of MLU is an irritation to a few. I also don't understand why they left it off.

There seem to be a number of adapters for Minolta MD manual lenses that have

glass in them to retain the infinity focus. They are mostly on ebay. Anyone with

any experience of these on Sony or Minolta Digital cameras. I know the ones

without glass will be OK optically and the camera will only operate in manual but

could the old MD lenses be OK for macro?

I only once bough tfrom the US a more expensive item. Only about $50. I ended up paying about $20 in tax, However I think cameras are duty free. You have to pay the VAT and a handling charge to the Post office for tax collection. I hear better reports about Hong Kong purhcases.

Just been looking at my scans from my 700si. They are not in the same league as images from my A350 or my E-330. I could not go back to film seriously again even though all the processing kit is in the attic.

The nearest Sony DSLR with all the KM A200 features and better image quality is the A300, this camera or the A350 have the live view tilt screen as well as an optical viewfinder.You could of course go to an Olympus E-3. I always thought the A200 was inferior to the A2 as an all in one camera.

Neither cameras offer a really good kit lens. I have A350 with 18-70 and although it is OK it is not brilliant. the same is true of the Canon 18-55. Suggest you buy a better lens than standard. Lenses have more to do with defintion on modern DSLR than the camera body.

The mirror lock up as part of the self timer is the obvious way to do it without providing a separate function. This must be a firmware issue. Seems to me Sony have left this out for no good reason. Lots of forum questions about it. Pehaps it will come in a firmware update.

If you need more magnification for close up a magnifying angle finder is great. this is helpful but I have a different make which is probably not as good qualtiy.

I read the PopPhoto test in the same way. It seems they test resolution with the kit lens. All other tests using the 16-80 or other lenses give the A350 the edge. Imaging-resource use a standard lens and the test show little difference between the A700 and A350. This is what persuaded me to buy an A350. However both cameras are very good the A350 has live view which as an ex Olympus E330 user is important to me.

Mark at 14 meg each uploading RAW files is a pain.