Which Pentax DSLR

With a budget of 600 I'd be tempted to get this:

K-30 body SRS ebay uk shop £299
Pentax 35mm F2.4 SMC DA L Microglobe £99
Pentax 55-300 HD WR F4-5.8 ED Microglobe £239

Yes I've gone over, that's some pretty decent gear for the money though.

Then later on when funds permit:

prime ~ 14/15/16mm
prime ~ 50/55mm

Thanks for all your help I've managed to order a K30 with 18-55 for £269 and a 35mm 2.4 for £99. Want to save up for some WR lenses probably the 18-135 and 55-300.

In the meantime may try and get hold of a sigma or tamron 70-300 second hand. Is there any older pentax lenses that you could recommend not bothered about having to focus manually. Do lenses known as PKA fit the K30 sorry for all the questions but always used Nikon and Micro 4/3.

K-30 will be the best budget choice at the moment. K-50 is not really hughe update to K-30. K-5 has some problem with af (speed)

Good choice. I've pretty much got the same thing

Agreed. I use the 35/2.4 and the non-WR 55-300 with my K-5; both excellent lenses. Happy to use the 35/2.4 wide open. Never had an issue with slow focussing on the K-5 regardless of what I've had on it. The 35/2.4 is almost instantaneous because of the short focus throw, and I pre-focus the 55-300 to approximately the correct range using the manual clutch, so that fine focus is very quick.

more questions the better
PK means the pentax 'K' mount. That is the bayonet mount that all pentax Digital cameras have, and also their film cameras back to the K1000. PKA means auto functions as well, ie you can control the aperure on the lens from the camera.

I have a K-30 and have almost exclusively been taking photos of my (now) 17 month old for the last ... er ... 17 months.

When she was 6 months old I got a DA 50 1.8 and was amazed at the sharpness and quality of the photos I got of her. Then, suddenly, at maybe 10 months, the quality of photos seriously reduced - so many were suddenly out of focus. For a while I really did blame the lens and was trying all sorts to fix it - then realised it was something much more simple than that. She could move.

So being a beginner it's taken me a while to adjust but after a lot of Googling and searching / reading these forums I'm happy once again.

Moving the focus button away from the shutter release onto the AE-L button was the first big gain. It seemed totally counter intuitive but the thread I got the tip from said something like that but that you should stick with it. And it was right. Holding AE-L down in AF-C mode gives me much more opportunity to keep her in focus - even with that lens.

Like earlier posts in the thread have said, it doesn't work for every photo - especially when the subject concerned is obsessed with the pretty camera and makes a bee line for it as soon as she hears it clicking (hence a lot of out of focus close ups of her nose) - but it's much more likely to succeed than anything else I've tried.

I try to give myself a head start with focus - if we're at home and she's run out of the room, I know she's going to be running back in again soon, so focus on something at the point where she'll come back in - the door frame, something just ahead of the door, so I know I'll get something as soon as she'll come back in.

The great thing about the Pentax range is that there is a lot of backwards compatibility. Here is a chart that helps link Only M42 lenses need an adapter.

Plus if you search through the lens section of the forum there constant discussions on the merits of older lenses on dslr's

You might want to explore Catch In Focus. Essentially, the camera is pre-focussed on a spot and when something - like a fast moving daughter - enters the target zone the camera fires.

Plenty of posts in this Forum on it.

Search for Catch in Focus here in the Forum using the 'all terms' option and you'll find some interesting reading.

I assume the K30 can do it; certainly my older K20D could.

Thanks for the tip John I will. I have had a play with catch in focus in the past, but only with manual lenses. I think I'd got the idea from the manual that it would assist manual focus in that I could hold the trigger down and it would only fire when it thought the subject was in focus.

My eyesight isn't great and I've never come to terms with manual focussing through the viewfinder - I struggle to get the camera to register that the subject is in focus - even if (I think!) it is. I seem to spend all my time hunting.

I've had much better results with manual focus - and I mean much better - using the contrast focus on the LCD screen - although I'm not sure how useful that would be outside in bright sunlight.

You said you were not bothered about having to focus manually. In that case, nearly all the Pentax SMC A and SMC M series are high quality and mainly inexpensive on E bay. Buy it and try it, keep it or ditch it as you will. The Ms are all manual. The As will work with auto settings provided you set the aperture ring to 'A'. It's easy to spot them as their styling is most distinctive. I have one or two auto lenses but I mainly use manuals.

Have a look at my sig. I've just added an SMC A 70-210 too. I'm getting better at manual focus but need a lot more practice with fast moving subjects before i'd be anywhere near confident of getting more in-focus images than AF can muster.

I'm trying to stick to 'A' manual lenses as I find the light metering helps me set exposure much more quickly - on the 'M's I need to take a few test shots.

Can recommend the 50mm smc m 1.7 its a cracking lens IMHOP

£600 to take pictures of a dog...
Hmm.

18-135 see my portfolio ( robin, cat etc) super lens, fast focus wouldn't leave the house without it