Because the AF confirmation hexagon is just as useful with a MF lens as it is with an AF one - arguably more so in fact, since as you said yourself, many people struggle to visually identify the point of sharpest focus.

If the camera's going to tell you when the image is focus, it's nice for it to tell the truth, AF or MF.

Well I was rather hoping for something that would be a real fix.. can it be calibrated in some way by the Pentax service dept?

Or has someone found the Debug mode yet, that might give access to more adjustment than +/- 10?

Or could it be the camera?

Sorry, I should have mentioned... it's a DA 17-70. I still haven't had a chance to retest with the new firmware, so I'll try and do that today.

Long before I'd even heard of SRS, I bought my K10D from Jessops, never a problem with it.

Very clear. That was the point I'd been missing. Many thanks KM.

So.. going back to the lens that's back focusing more than the K-5 adjustment allows... what's best to do?

Does any one around here really understand why this is needed?

Because if so, I would dearly love to understand a number of things.

Firstly, and most importantly, how can the way the AF system works out whether the image is in focus or not, give a different result for different lenses?

I could imagine, for instance, that if the AF sensors and the sensor are at different distances from where the light splits, you'd need to adjust it. If this was so, I do not understand why they couldn't do it at the factory. Perhaps it's something that can change over time, in which case, fair enough.

However, this does not explain how different lenses would cause the need for different amounts of adjustment. The sensor is flat, and the mirror is flat, so if the image at the sensor is in focus, why is a different amount of adjustment needed for different lenses?

I've wondered about this on and off for ages, but I'm now in the position of having a lens that back-focuses quite a lot, in the case of my first (now replaced) K-5, by MUCH more than the adjustment allows, and now with my second one, by just a little more than the adjustment allows.

I have yet to retest this with the latest firmware, but I can't see how it can be a software problem either.

So, any Pentax AF boffins out there, please explain if you can. I'm clearly missing something important, and I'd love to understand.

Don't know the answer to that yet, I'm only on my first battery charge on the replacement K-5. I wouldn't be at all surprised if it does, especially if you have auto-off set to quite a long time (I do), and leave the camera in range of the designated network (it is).

Quite honestly, if it does, I shall buy three or four knock-off batteries from 7DS, and just live with it.

Another few shots today, and no messing with cards. I love it.

For airshows, or other events where I'm going to take hundreds of photos, I'll take the eye-fi out, and use ordinary cards.

I've recently moved from the K10D to the K-5. I realise it's not the comparison you're asking for but I've been doing tungsten light shots at ISO 3200 on the K-5 and I'm amazed at the low noise levels. It's there at 100%, but resize down to 1000px or so and it's just gone. The AWB is so much better too.

I couldn't have achieved anything like this with the K10D.

With the K-5 / K-r comparison, the point is a more subtle one, but I think it's not so much the same picture that would be better with the better camera, but the pictures that you can get with it, that you couldn't with the not so good camera.

If the camera is better featured, it should allow you to get pictures where the better features are a differentiating point. Better SR, lower noise at high ISO, better AF, the list goes on.

It's a fine point, and much of the time the features wouldn't make a difference, so a marginally better spec'd camera will only make a marginal difference, most of the time.

I'm sure it was... but at F8, I'd have expected it to be sharper, and see more DOF I guess.

Of course, the 'focus and reframe' method of selecting focus point will be at its very worst at 10mm up close like this.

It does take some getting used to, for sure. It's very much worth the effort though, I think.

I realise you were pretty close in the second one, but even so it doesn't look all that sharp. With an exposure of 1/1250, it's obviously not camera shake!

Sometimes I found with this lens on the K10D, the AF would think that it was already in focus, even if it wasn't. It's a good plan to force it to refocus by focusing on something very close (or very far in this case) first, and then refocusing on your subject.

Well you can specify the folder you want it to put the uploaded images in, and you can also specify a date-format for subfolders. You have to do this separately for JPGs and RAW files (and videos in fact), which means you can send them to different places.

The so-called 'Eye-Fi centre' thumbnails uploaded images, but only JPGs, not DNGs or PEFs. So for seeing what you're getting, I don't think it's much use.

While it's actually uploading you get a square icon about an inch and a half across at the bottom right corner of the monitor, with a progress percentage that goes up as it uploads.

I have Picasa set up to monitor the relevant folders, so I view them with that when they appear in Picasa.

The only drawback is that Picasa shows K-5 DNGs very dark, even if they're well exposed. It won't show K-5 PEFs at all, though it does import them. I imagine if you used Bridge it would be fine.