Didn't quite do the edit properly - it's -just- still visible. I have a better res version that I'll do properly.
Thanks for that.

I'll dig out the EXIF details in a bit for McBrian... thanks for the comments.

All comments welcomed. I have a couple more from the same session in the garden that I'll post at some point if folks don't mind.

Absolutely. I'm planning to do something of a comparative review with some shots of the same thing taken with each lens.
Quite so. I'm considering keeping both for the weight difference alone.

Ah, thanks for this.

Supplementary question, then, if I may.

This little guy was hanging out with the first one:

http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t244/chris5gd/Misc/95557362.jpg

I thought they were mother and baby, but presumably they're siblings?

How come they're so different?

Well now that I've had Brian's lens for a few days, I thought I'd 'fess up to being the purchaser. So far I'm absolutely delighted with it, and I must pay tribute to Brian for a very smooth transaction; very well packed, delivered even before my cheque could have cleared.

The lens is in lovely condition, with just a couple of very minor cosmetic imperfections - it's a heavy beast, quite a lot more so than the Sigma equivalent that I acquired from Mannesty a few months back. So it's a little harder to use without a tripod. But already the colours are subjectively quite a lot better than the Sigma's. I haven't assessed the sharpness in comparison yet.

But I've had a bit of a go with it; here are a couple of shots from the garden:

http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t244/chris5gd/Public/IMGP4103-cr-sh.jpg

http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t244/chris5gd/Public/IMGP4111-lq.jpg

Not anywhere close to doing it justice yet, but hopefully I'll get my eye in a bit more with practice.

I've posted these as links rather than inline, since the bird (can anyone tell me what it is?) is already cropped to a little more than a third of the width of the frame, and when I resized to 600 pixels it got quite jagged.

Anyway my thanks once again to Brian, and my commiserations to John.

Well I happened to see the stream of invective and personal abuse that was deleted quite quickly after it was posted, and I was quite shocked.

I think people will tend to form their own view of someone that

a) feels it appropriate to post that kind of nastiness and
b) feels that removing it from public view amounts to censorship.

I certainly have.

I do agree with this, but it's not only about ultimate performance.

You can go places with your Swiss Army Knife, and it's good enough for the purposes you'd use it for. You'd undoubtedly do better with your saw, knife and scissors, but you'd look a bit strange in some of those places with them hanging from your utility belt.

The sense in which I meant that the debate is reminiscent of criticisms of digital vs film some years ago is that they all, quite rightly, said that the technology wasn't up to the job at that time. But now it is.

By the same token, I expect the quality of video available from stills cameras to improve, and vice versa. They'll be good enough in an increasing number of situations, and convenience will be a factor to include in the equation.

Now, it may be the case that by the time the quality of video stills is equal to what we can get with a K10D now, we'll all have hugely greater expectations, and need (!) to display our photos on huge wall-mounted terapixel displays (solar powered, obviously).

In which case, it may well be the case that there'll still be the market demand to keep stills cameras separate from video, and as you say, the single purpose device will probably be better than the multi-purpose one.

When I made my first move to digital I bought a Sony DSC T3 compact, and I've been very pleased with it. The fact that it took video too was a bonus but not the main reason for getting it. Ironically, though, I've used it far more for video than stills. Hardly HD, but surprisingly good - VGA resolution at 30fps, and very handy for the short clips I wanted to capture.

This debate is reminiscent of the criticisms of digital vs film some years ago. Digital simply wasn't good enough for the more demanding, just as video stills aren't good enough yet now.

I think eventually the technology will move forward beyond anything most of us now have the mindset for, and a lot of these debates will seem old hat.

I agree it's a fair way off though, and there is a serious risk that the main manufacturers will neglect the demanding photographic amateurs in search of the mass market.

Are you sure you haven't somehow accidentally resized your test shots when getting them ready for posting?

For example, that first one is only 681 x 1024 pixels. The K100D max resolution according to the spec is 3008 x 2000.

To get the best out of any tests like this, you should ensure that you're seeing the best resolution that the camera can achieve.

I think that for the purposes of this sort of test, eyeballs and tripod will work fine. You'll soon see if the left and right (or top and bottom) of the frame are equally in focus.