diff --git a/ChangeLog b/ChangeLog
index 2f00ba1a..e4f84e6c 100644
--- a/ChangeLog
+++ b/ChangeLog
@@ -4,10 +4,10 @@
   Python
 - add shift option to cast
 - sRGB2scRGB and scRGB2sRGB scale 16-bit alpha to and from 8-bit
-- tiff pyramid writer no longer copies base image
 - added vips_region_shrink(), fast x2 shrinker
 - add magicload_buffer() [mcuelenaere]
 - added test_foreign.py, plus more test images
+- rewritten tiff writer is about 3 - 4x faster at making pyramids
 
 6/2/15 started 7.42.3
 - bump version for back-compat ABI change
diff --git a/TODO b/TODO
index dbf71eaa..3c6c0a60 100644
--- a/TODO
+++ b/TODO
@@ -1,11 +1,4 @@
-
-
-
-- tiff pyramid builder:
-
-	- only write level 0 once ... append levels 1 and up afterwards
-
-	- try to copy levels 1 and up without decompress / recompress
+- add more tests for the tiff writer
 
 
 
diff --git a/libvips/foreign/vips2tiff.c b/libvips/foreign/vips2tiff.c
index c07dd901..4ad6e2da 100644
--- a/libvips/foreign/vips2tiff.c
+++ b/libvips/foreign/vips2tiff.c
@@ -148,8 +148,8 @@
  * 	- disable chroma subsample if Q >= 90
  * 13/2/15
  * 	- append later layers, don't copy the base image
- * 14/2/15
  * 	- use the nice dzsave pyramid code, much faster and simpler
+ * 	- we now allow strip pyramids
  */
 
 /*
@@ -787,13 +787,6 @@ write_new( VipsImage *im, const char *filename,
 		return( NULL );
 	}
 
-	if( !write->tile && write->pyramid ) {
-		vips_warn( "vips2tiff", 
-			"%s", _( "can't have strip pyramid -- "
-			"enabling tiling" ) );
-		write->tile = 1;
-	}
-
 	/* We can only pyramid LABQ and non-complex images. 
 	 */
 	if( write->pyramid ) {