To be honest its been such a long time since i built my own system i prefer to buy of the shelf with the benefit of good technical support.

I have had components fail in the past and having to return a motherboard under RMA to ebuyer is not a good experience compared to sending in a complete unit to Dell or Toshiba etc, both i have had to use and both where collected repaired and returned in less than a week with the minimum off fuss.

Do you really save that much building your own system compared to buying off the shelf? Even the cost of buying windows makes it so uneconomical.

They have a higher failure rate than normal hard drives, but then their use is difference to normal hard drives in that they are not used for long term storage of critical data, hence being used as boot disks.

Having seen how sharp the mkii is i dont see much point in getting the mkiis now. My plan was to get the mkii then get the mkiis when prices dropped but my mind has been changed now

Its all about the focus improvements, a little sensor and the body coating. That's about it but uts enough to make me think how did I manage with the mki's

Practice makes perfect, i have photographed 70 festivals now shooting around 10-12 acts a day which equates to around 1400 acts plus gigs too. Takes time and a lot of studying other photographers.

F 50mm 1.4

K-5 MKii
ISO 2000
f/1.4
1/125
Straight out of camera jpeg

Just posted this

https://www.pentaxuser.com/forum/topic/k-5-mkii-with-f-50mm-f-1-4-39481

Not had much time to play with my K-5 mkii due to other commitments but boy do I love using my 50mm wide open with it. Its so sharp with no focus adjustments in body.

These where shot in my kitchen which has florescent lighting at one end and energy saving lights at the other.

Straight out of camera jpegs, no post processing.

ISO 2000
f/1.4
1/160
no flash

Focus was instant to lock on as usual with the mkii, tried with the mki and again it just wouldn't lock on under these conditions and no doubt the black fur of the dog causing problems.

Is that the tamron? I had that lens for around four years and shot a few weddings with it with good results.

Club judges tend to like all images to be sharp, yet sometimes this isnt necessary and what happens is it then becomes formulaic and judging becomes predictable.

I have been known to submit the odd henry Carter Bresson or Brassai and seen judges slam them for not being sharp and having blur. I guess the fact that these judges don't recognise work by photography masters tells you all you need to know really.