I've had my X-T10 a few months now, and I'm really very pleased with it. Lightweight but feels quality; image quality is great; handles well; and it was relatively cheap. I keep wondering about an upgrade but think I'd be better spending the money on a new lens.

You might enjoy 'The Year of Reading Dangerously' by Andy Miller - a book about re-learning to read in middle age as the author did as a child, complete with a list of book recommendations ('The list of betterment'). Really entertaining and also pretty practical advice.

I enjoyed my visit to the Elton John photo collection show at the Tate Modern: it's an impressive collection, and the better for being focused on a particular period (I'm not sure about his taste in frames, though; but I guess they make a change from a sea of white or black frames). I particularly liked the Imogen Cunninghams - I wasn't aware of her work previously, and I'd like to see a bit more. In terms of sizing, getting up close to these often very small small prints really adds something to the experience (something I was first conscious of when the Take Modern did a small show of tiny Harry Callahan prints - just exquisite). It made for an interesting contrast with the Abstract Expressionist show currently on at the Royal Academy in London, which I visited a few days before the Elton John and which I'd recommend highly. Some of those pictures (hello Clyfford Still, hello Jackson Pollock) are *enormous*... It's made me think a lot more about the arms race of photo print size (though I'm not convinced the prints from my new Instax are necessarily the answer to everything...).

Is there a sense of how long the P600 and P800 while remain current? ie when are they likely to be replaced? I guess printers get updated less frequently than cameras, but I have a history of inadvertently buying cameras just before the manufacturers announce a replacement model...

I am very tempted to get one of these (or the P800!), but space is an issue. Do they need much room around them beyond their actual physical footprint (particularly behind)? I'm wondering if I can squeeze one in to the limited space I have available.

This seems to be particularly relevant to the interests of readers who are on the cusp of buying a portrait lens and who live in a country that's just dramatically tanked its own currency for no obvious rational return. Maybe I should order that 60mm sooner rather than later. Neil London

Isn't Google Streetview doing this for us now?

More posts about turntables and hi-fi, I say. I've been dipping my toes into audophile forums recently - with a vague view to upgrading some part of my vinyl playing system - and have found it a surprisingly impenetrable world (I speak as one who has spent far, far too much time discussing niche-interest guitars, guitar amps and boutique effects pedals online).

I use Silver Efex Pro for b&w conversion and had almost always applied one of the film simulations to files from my Nikon D80; usually one of the two slowest speeds - the faster ones looking too obviously like film simulations, where the slower ones just add a very tiny amount of pleasing texture, particularly to skies. However, when I moved to shooting with a Fuji X-E1, none of the film simulations seem to improve it, or rather seem necessary, so I've pretty much gone without. I've no idea what the difference is technically, but there is - to my eyes - a real difference.

Much truth there. I had been taking photos with a vague idea as to what I liked, but a sense that I might be a bit alone in that respect. I started putting them on Flickr, and gained a little audience, which made me think I maybe wasn't wasting my time. Then I gained a (mostly local) Twitter audience, and suddenly I had people sharing my photos and telling me which ones they liked, why they like them, and so on. The most important thing wasn't the attendant ego boost (ahem...ok, maybe a bit), but that it made me think more clearly about the photos I was taking, and the themes I was exploring. You can only talk into a vacuum for so long.