digital camera capabilities

Tony Duell wrote... In the interests of completeness, I should say that this isn't strictly speaking true. Canon make EOS mount tilt/shift lenses, which will work on any of their digital SLRs (three of them, 24, 45 and 90mm IIRC.) In fact, their APS-C sensor DSLRs are in many ways ideal - the smaller-than-35mm sensor size means you're unlikely to see any vignetting even at extreme ends of the available movements. (For the uninitiated, a lens intended for tilt/shift, such as the TS-E lenses or anything made for a technical/view camera, needs to project an image circle significantly larger than the imaging plane (film/sensor), to allow for moving the projected image around as you move the lens. The extreme ends of the movements on the tilt/shift FD mount lens I use on my film camera are marked in red - this indicates you're going to start seeing vignetting if you tilt/shift this far because the image circle no longer covers the whole film area. Because most (not all) digital SLRs use smaller APS size sensors (~25mm longest edge IIRC rather than ~36) this is less of a problem.) That said, the Canon TS-E lenses are considered 'speciality' lenses and priced accordingly; unless you're going to make a living out of architectural photography not really a serious recommendation. My recommendation for a cheap digital starter kit for doing what you want would be the bottom of the range Canon digtal SLR (EOS 400D in Europe, 'Digital Rebel XTi' I think in USA - identical camera, but US market apparently demands a 'cool' name like 'Rebel'.) Buy it body-only, and buy the Canon EF-S 60mm f/2.8 Macro lens as well. The EF-S is a beautiful lens at a very reasonable price; top-notch quality, the effective focal length given the smaller sensor in a DSLR is around 90mm, which is pretty reasonable for what you're looking to do, and most importantly it can do true 1:1 macro for when you want the photos of individual chips on that motherboard. It's also compatible with the Canon ringlight flash if you find yourself doing a lot of macro. The only caveat is that being an EF-S, it's not compatible with full-frame DSLRs or film SLRs (EF-S lenses take advantage of the smaller sensor & mirror size in DSLRs to extend the optics further back into the camera; if you could mount them on a film cam (which you can't, the mount prevents it,) the back of the lens would smash the mirror. Oh, that reminds me, in a conversation a while ago possible sources of weak acid solutions were being pondered. I meant to mention then, but it didn't seem worth an entire post - photographic stop bath is a weak acid solution, and readily available (in the UK, your high street Jessops still stocks most photographic chemistry, for the timebeing at least.) 'Normal' stop bath is acetic acid based I believe, you can also buy odourless (or more accurately 'less obnoxious odour') stop bath which is usually citric acid based. Cheers, Tim -- Tim Walls at home in Leeds EMail & MSN: tim.walls at snowgoons.com