Well, what a surprise. After I'd pretty much ruled out one of these on cost grounds, my fabulous other half hears me talking about them, and buys me one as a surprise early birthday present!

She got me an 8GB X2 pro, and so far, I'm liking it a lot.

Taking the card out of its packaging, you find it inserted into a USB adaptor, which you plug in. Once it's detected, you install the software (which is on the card) which then self-updates.

Then it downloads and installs new firmware for the card!

And then it works. I had a very strange problem after the first couple of pics, which was that I lost all ethernet connection to my router. WiFi was fine, but I had to reboot the router to regain wired connection. I find it very hard to believe that this is just coincidence, since the router and computer are both permanently on, and have been rock-solid for months.

Anyway, it seems fine now. The card uploads DNGs from the K-5 with no problem - it takes about 10 seconds from taking a picture to being detected, and then another 15s or so for a 20MB DNG to come up.

Not particularly fast, I know, but I love the convenience. I know it's not that inconvenient to take the card out, and put it in the reader, but it is so nice to just put the camera down, and have the pics appear by magic. Especially if I just have a few images at a time, which is mostly how I work.

I don't much go for nice-to-haves like that, but as a treat, it's just fab.

On its way!

This question isn't possible to answer, without knowing what you want to use it for.

If you want P-TTL, no. If you want a powerful, controllable, manual flash, with the ability to create strobe effects, yes.

See Mannesty's post above, it's as good a summary as you'll find.

As it happens, I'm in the process of rationalising my lenses down to seven:

Sigma 10-20
DA 17-70
FA 50 1.4
DA 55-300
A 50 1.7
A 100 F4 Macro
Sigma 50-500

Both my 400mm primes are going. It'll be very sad to say goodbye to both of them, for very different reasons. The Sigma is compact, light, super-quick to focus, and sharp once you get to F8. So in good light it's very usable anywhere. The Pentax is a thing of beauty, optically very good, but heavy. The Bigma has replaced them both, sadly, since I couldn't afford the Bigma without selling a load of other stuff.

Not sure the 18-55 Mk1 is worth selling - it'll only fetch about £25 I'd have thought, and it'll be a backup for the 17-70 when the latter goes for an AF calibration (it back focuses more than can be adjusted on the K-5). But I don't think it counts as one of seven.

The next stage is to aspirationalise (pace, George) the seven.

The FA50 has always troubled me. It's just the wrong focal length for the APS-C sensor. So I think a 31 Limited, eventually, instead. That said, it would be rude and ungrateful to sell the first lens I ever owned, so the A50 1.7 will stay. It's still really useful for semi-macro close-ish shots of smallish things. The 10-20 is a little quirky, but I can't see myself replacing it with a 12-24 for a while at least, and in any case, for something so expensive, the CA puts me off.

The A100 F4 Macro needs more use before I can work out whether it would be in my seven or not.

If not, what to take its place? Another prime, for sure, but I have no idea which.

Hey Gwyn, why the change of heart?

This is mostly due to the unusually long focus throw IME.

If you get it close with quick shift, I find it pretty quick on the K10D.

Do you mean generally, or just if you let the subject get out of the centre spot?

If the latter, yes, I find this too. Once it hunts to the near or far extreme, it takes ages to get back. I'd suggest setting AF point selection to auto - at a distance, if there's only one main subject to focus on, it's a lot easier to track and just as accurate.

I don't find it hunts at all if I point the camera accurately in the first place. Which I often don't with fast moving aircraft.

But I've had some very satisfying results with the 55-300, and would heartily recommend it. Just as an example of the sharpness achievable, here are some of the Red Arrows. This is a 100% crop from that picture.

It's not quite that good out at 300mm, but it's pretty good.

Might get an articulated screen with the K-3....

Agreed, I'm not trying to legislate! I just sometimes think people are trying a bit too hard to be clever or funny, and subjectively it often seems to detract from what can be a cracking image that stands on its own.

Conversely, if the photographer really does want to convey exactly what (s)he means, I'm all for captions, explanatory notes, etc etc - they can add a lot of context to otherwise ambiguous images.

Just for the record, I'm kind of making a serious point here. Nothing more than just my view, and I realise others have others... but I offer my reasons for folk to ignore or not as they please.

One of the things I love about looking at pictures is the way they so often lend themselves to interpretations that differ according to the person looking at them. Much like any art, of course.

Stick a caption on the top, and the dynamic changes - now you have the artist effectively telling you how to interpret the art. That's just as Ok as leaving it entirely up to the viewer, but if the link between the caption and the photo is obscure, it introduces obstacles that hinder both one's own interpretation (since now there's a caption overriding any interpretation I might make), and also my understanding of the artist's intent (since it's too obscure for me to 'get').

That's why I dislike a lot of people's captions - possibly because I'm too stupid, but they don't help me understand the artist's intent.

Captions that I like very much are where they are effectively reporting the photographer's experience. They tend to be longer, more descriptive, and the photos end up illustrating the story the photographer wants to tell.

In my book, that's absolutely fine, and makes sense of both the narrative and the images.

But cryptic ones, I don't like. I don't like cryptic crosswords either, I just can't be, erm, faffed

Ah, now it's funny you should say that...

When I saw the caption, I thought, 'hmm, I wonder if he's actually looking over the top of the paper'. So I opened it up in PS and zoomed in, which of course I couldn't do very much without pixelation. But I did think that actually he was looking at the paper. If he's really looking over the top, then fair play to you, but it's not obvious to me...

Cmon, let's see a 100% crop then

Yes, well, that's the sort of reason I hate captions