Have a look at this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eo61t5fH6Qw&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Truly, the problem you describe is not a problem. I have had my K5 for several years, frequently using zooms (including those not weather-sealed), and have not yet had to clean the sensor.

A watermark will protect you against casual infringement to some degree, though if you place it on the edge, for aesthetic reasons, often it might just as well not be there at all, since it's easy enough to crop. If you put it in the centre, you achieve one end while defeating another.

Your settings won't protect against other web use, as you realise, but for commercial exploitation in print the file size will be its own protection.

Food photography has always struck me as a difficult undertaking, partly because we've become conditioned to seeing it treated with various 'tricks' by photographers to make it look more vibrant and 'glossy' than it ever could be in reality. E.g. that piece of bacon(?) in the second shot looks most unappetizing, even though I doubt a customer would look askance at it were it on the table. Ditto, as mentioned above, the garnish, which looks as though it's hiding its face in shame.

There is in other words usually a gap between what we see and what we get. These photographs are more honest than most.

No, not theory. This is my practice. I find the DoF preview useful, even on screens that are less useful for focusing than those I had on earlier SLRs.

You may want to tell me I'm wrong to do so, but I can at least tell you that I am not talking theoretically.

The DoF preview may not offer precision, but it is usually enough to give reassurance that the OOF object you have in the foreground of your pic as seen through the viewfinder using a lens's widest aperture will in fact be acceptably focused at the smaller aperture you've selected. It's obviously not of use on every shot, but it's helpful on some.

An important qualification, at least for me. I wouldn't want to do without a viewfinder, partly out of habit, I daresay, but also for more substantive reasons (stability eg). On something like the MX1 it would have to be a hybrid, for those occasions needing precise framing.

As the comments of others in the thread seem to suggest, Pentax does have most of the right ingredients - but they are not (yet) baked into just one body.

I have been thinking for at least a couple of years of getting a second camera that's light and portable. The choice is much better than it was. I nearly fell for the RX100, but just didn't like handling it (and they forgot the viewfinder); my current favourite is the X100s, but the price ... ouch! I'm sure my prevarications will go on long enough for Pentax to come up with my ideal.

A good bunch. At first I thought no.1 was my favourite, but on reflection () decided it would have to be no.3. A nice sort of indecision...

I suspect surprisingly few even of the top professionals can make a good living directly from their photography. A fair few appear to find holding photography workshops and suchlike a way of keeping the wolf from the door, and the most enterprising of them have developed sizeable businesses. But there is probably a long tail of photographers offering tuition who don't have the profile or organisational skills or whatever else it takes to get their enterprises off the ground.

I have the opposite problem: my satnav just won't die. When I got it the kids dubbed it my Happy Meal satnav, so toylike and generally unprepossessing does it look. They are no longer kids ... but the sat nav, with it's B&W 1.5 inch screen goes on ... and on, the maps getting more and more unreliable. Yet I can't ditch it while the female guide, who speaks either American or British English, still draws breath ...

The Dutch historian Pieter Geyl once described History as 'argument without end'. I now know he mis-spoke and meant 'Photography'