I'm slighty confused, perhaps someone here can help me understand more clearly. I know this is about stills but with digital stills we are arguably dealing with something more akin to a video signal than an exposed "picture". We're all shooting video nowadays even when we take stills. Reading the flickr discussion linked above I'm a bit confused and slightly skeptical that some of the points made are nonsense. If we take digital stills as being like individual high res video frames (which is essentially what they are) then the detail and "resolution" comes from the luminance signal. Individual chroma signals will naturally be relatively low res compared to Luminance. Worrying overly about R, G or B clipping individually is potentially quite silly. Just because red is clipping DOES NOT automatically mean there'll be "no detail" in the reds/flesh tones because the green and blue contribute to the luminance signal and just because red clipped is not an automatic indication that "all detail is lost". The majority of the luminance signal comes from green, so if I was going to look at anything to judge detail and the danger of losing it, it'd be the green signal. Besides which, histograms are a cheap and nasty way of monitoring the "engineering quality" of your signal. OK for a rough guide but no good for proper evaluation. What we really need to see is a waveform. Then exposure and contrast ratio really could be judged and it'd be a genuine help. Histograms are as potentially misleading as they are useful IMHO.

I had a similar thing with my neighbour's building work causing me issues. I took pictures and kept notes etc. for a dossier just in case I needed to go to the small claims court and what not.

If your photography is purely for assembling a dossier of evidence for the relevant authority/court use and just shows the offending activity then you will be fine. No need to worry.

I don't think it would be possible to convert anyone I know. I took my K-5 into work at Granada Studios the other day to get a few shots for my website. Stood behind my ped with the Pentax strap around my neck and it caused quite a stir. "What is it?.... Oh Pentax!! Do they still make cameras? Is it film or digital? Is it full frame?" etc. etc.

It was quite funny really. Nobody seems to realise that Pentax still make cameras. Media types are generally terrible Canon snobs. If it ain't a 5D it ain't worth bothering with. They were impressed with it though. Everyone who handled it said positive things about the build quality, proofing and nifty size. I said to them that in my opinion for the money (at that price point) it's the best on the market and nobody scoffed or disagreed.

Pentax really need to get their marketing act together and get themselves out there bashing the drum in the marketplace.

Bought my sister a Pentax compact for Xmas which she loves. My conversion to Pentax from Lumix is spreading through the family

After only just over a month since I converted I'm really happy. I love my K-5 and the only tricky thing is resisting the temptation to buy more primes. I refuse to buy DA lenses though because I really hope they bring out a FF model and I wanna be able to use my existing glass if they do.

Trouble is I have no choice but to have a foot in both camps. All lightweight TV lenses follow the Canon focus barrell convention and on full facility box lens cameras the focus servo demand operates that way too. Clockwise near, anti-clock far. So when I've got my Cameraman's hat on I throw the focus about conventionally. When I put my snapper's hat on, with my Billingham full of Pentax gear, I have to switch my brain around and try to remember to go the "wrong" way

As my main job is TV Cameraman, finding best focus manually, very fast, is second nature. I wondered if stills might be trickier but it isn't. It's a directly transferrable skill. It's an instinct you develop through practice. I'd echo John's comment about people becoming reliant upon technology. If you've set up your viewfinder properly it really isn't that difficult. The only auto lens I've got is the kit zoom which, since I bought my M primes, I've not used at all. Manual all the way for me. I was snapping people round the dinner table on Sunday using just available light and the M 50 f1.7 wide open. Soft light from huge windows, quite flat, not much modelling. The vast majority of the shots were good with best focus.

Just practice. You don't even have to pop off a shot. Just wander around with the camera switched off finding best focus on objects and people. Rock through best focus back and forth and learn to recognise when you've hit the spot.

The slightly weird thing for me is that the direction of operation of the lens barrel on Pentax is opposite to the general convention. So infinity and MOD are reversed which still catches me out. I'll see that I need to focus forward or back but because of years turning the barrel clockwise for forward and anti-clockwise for back toward infinity I still sometimes forget myself with the pentax and go the wrong way first rather than just directly to best focus.

There's also an Ovington in Hampshire, just down the road from me.

Bought it from LCE and got a really good deal. (Especially since I bought the Lumix there and the guy who sold it to me made an error and invoiced me for £100 less than the transaction should have been - of course I kept quiet and got out as fast as I could )Plus, as I've now realised, I did just bung one of my cards in that I'd previously used in the Lumix and I didn't format it for the Pentax. I just started snapping away and never thought to set it up. I'll try formatting it and then do another upload to check the shutter count. Cheers guys for the heads up.

They just said it was the last one they had in stock. Which, with hindsight, I suppose might mean it had been on display at some point although that was not mentioned when they sold it to me.

I love the camera though. It's a pleasure to use and the £30 50mm M lens is staggeringly good for the money and looks good on the camera too. Overall I'm delighted, just slightly irritated at being sold a "new" camera with such a high number of shutter operations.

EDIT: Just checked the file nos and the first pic I took started at 0996.

Hi guys, just seen the light and moved over to Pentax K5 ditching my Lumix 4:3 gear. Traded my old stuff in and I got the K5 + 18-55 kit and also bought a mint M50 f1.7 results with this old lens are very good. My concern is that when I checked my shutter count yesterday 3 days after buying the camera, the total was 652!!!

Is that acceptable for a camera sold as "new" from a dealer? Should I take it back and demand an exchange?