Thanks, it does answer some questions. So it lacks the bargraph in viewfinder but at least it displays numerically the difference from metered exposure, which makes the manual mode almost useable.
Looking in the viewfinder display again, the area wasted with program mode icons and manual focus warning (!) is horrifyingly large. It goes a long way to show how idiotic the targeted customers are in Pentax's vision. Consequently, there's no wonder we have no display of selected meter mode neither in the viewfinder nor on the back LCD. Digging through the menus is in order to find out what the meter mode is. But at least there is a spot meter (something that the more advanced Canon 20D lacks). It's still not obvious if the spot meter can be used in manual mode or it is restricted to the AE lock operation. With regard to aperture-set-from-the-lens implementation: in manual mode one can only check out the difference from metered exposure by pressing the DOF lever; there is no provision for automatic setting of the speed value like the *ist d does. Too bad, it renders old lenses almost useless, and I doubt this will be fixed by a firmware patch. Pentax is interested to maintain the ergonomic gap to *ist d, now that it's technologically surpassed by the *ist ds. Servus, Alin J> Ist -DS english manual J> http://81.205.100.252/pdf/uk/digitaal/OPM%20IST%20DS%20ENG.pdf
