My reasoning too. Currently, my 7dayshop cheapie has taken 408 shots and is still showing "full." Like the other lithium batteries I've got (power tools), I'm expecting a sudden power drop - which is why I bought spares in the first place, so I'm not "caught out."

Ray.

Have a look here.

I ordered two and can confirm that they're fine. HTH

Ray.

Thanks for the link, Peter! Even though I knew the camera battery was charged enough and everything went according to the easy-to-follow accompanying text file, I still had my heart in my mouth for the couple of minutes that it took to upgrade.

All completed successfully, so I think I'm now going to leave my big Metz with the Z1 and have a look at the latest Pentax guns.

Ray.

I tend to agree. As I said in my previous post, I rang Pentax UK about the situation with one of their dealers and couldn't find anyone who was interested.

Ray.

Similar experience in Adams Photographic, Tunbridge Wells, when I was looking for a K10D late November 2006.

I was told that they wouldn't be stocking it, or recommending it now that Pentax UK had "gone down the toilet." Quite a statement for a Pentax dealer, I thought. Head office didn't seem interested, though. Finished up getting mine at Park Cameras in Burgess Hill.

Ray.

A while ago, someone within this forum posted this link to a suitable battery for the K10D. I ordered a couple and they arrived this morning.

Both are now charged and this post is just to confirm that they fit and operate fine.

The only difference is in the overall capacity. The supplied battery is 7.4V 1620mAh, the replacements are 7.4v 1500mAh.

Two batteries and a Sandisk 1GB Extreme III SD card delivered for a hair under £43 - I think that's good value.

Ray.

I hadn't checked this until I read your post, but it's the same for me - reads the DNG files fine, but not the PEFs. With a given example today, the PEF file is 10,490KB, but saved as a DNG it expands to 21,491KB. This was an "in PC" conversion, of course. I've found that saving as DNGs on the K10D brings the files in somewhere around the 16-17000KB size.

There's quite a bit on the 'Net about plug-ins, but I can't get any of them to work either.

Ray.

Here's one I did on the way home today.

It's a jpeg image, extracted from a RAW taken using

Pentax FA 28-105mm F4-5.6 lens, fully zoomed.
1/125 sec at F8 using Shutter & Aperture Priority Automatic Exposure mode.
Multi-segmented metering, Auto WB, RAW format at 400 Sensitivity.

http://www.raygirling.com/images/k10dsun.jpg

I'm quite pleased with it.

Ray.

There's a little more to the saga than I first posted. I've been on the camera dealer's "notify" list for a while and was notified today. I had just been checking their web pages, where the camera was shown (with lens attached) for a price. When clicking on the "Specifications" tab, I saw that the box contained the body, DA 18/55MM lens, leads, battery, charger, software.

I checked that this is what I was getting, but was told "No, sorry, that's a mistake, it's body only for that price." Now, I accept that the DA 18/55MM lens may not be a "best in class," but it would have been something made for the unit to hang on the front (the dealer had no stock of that lens anyway).

I've got two KAF lenses from my Z1 that will fit, but with some penalties regarding focal lengths, features, etc. What I found really annoying, though, was that inside the box, attached to the plastic cover of the manual, was a barcode label that read "1909500 K10D + DA 18/55mm"

On the outside of the box was another barcode label, reading simply "19095." I'm not sure whether I can make any sort of fuss, but I doubt it.

The battery's just finished in the charger, BTW, so I'm off to play now!

Ray.

Picked it up this afternoon - still got the battery in the charger. An opportunity to install software, read the manual, etc. Feels nice and solid - very exciting to have one at last. I'll add to this thread as events progress.

Ray.