Rather that outbound, consider inbound. If the Greeks are jittery about a rocket blower, a tungsten-tipped monopod looks worth every day of a 7-year jail sentence

That 100% crop is a good advert for the K3 and the DA300 ... and of course your skill

It's possible the problem stems from processing post capture -- saving an image at too low a resolution can cause the posterization. Are these converted from a RAW file or are they a straight-out-of-camera jpeg?

On the other hand, the advice above may sort it for you.

EDIT : Im slow on the draw: I now see others have already said pretty much was I was trying to say

My instinct is MattyH's - that as the years roll by FF will become the norm for some branches of serious photography. I feel more confident about that now it's clear that FF can be made to fit into a body not significantly larger than cameras in the present Pentax DSLR range. Landscape photographers in particular should see the benefits.

It will not be for everyone and it remains to be seen whether the sums will work for Pentax, starting from a smaller user group than some of the other marques. But there are also risks in not offering FF.

If I were fresh in the market, I'd go for FF. As it is, the greater part of my investment in glass is in lenses designed for a crop sensor. Re-equipping would be a costly move.

Fortunately, since I tend not to point my camera at things that move and in low light tend to use a tripod, my K5 and the lenses I own will do good service for a bit.

Nice shots. No.2 is my favourite: the reflections on the wet beach a good balance

SRS may be in Watford, but is Pentax a northern brand? Looking through this engagingly pointless thread, I can't help but be struck that amongst those willing to admit to living anywhere, the heavy preponderance of numbers is well north of Watford, with a few outliers in Wales and on the Continent. Should SRS consider moving to, say, Newcastle. It would increase my cost of getting to see them from a few quid to about 100, so the question is asked without any expectation of personal gain (indeed, with the certainty of personal loss).

So, what is it about Pentax and the North? The weathersealing may be one factor ....

I've found the Pentax battery that came with the camera to be the best performer in terms of per-charge longevity, outlasting 3rd-party batteries I have by a noticeable margin. BUT the 3rd-party batteries are perfectly acceptable and while they hold their charge, allow the camera to perform as expected. They are a quarter the price of the Pentax product.

the first and last are, in their different ways, impressive.

I suppose it depends on how radically you recompose. I've not had problems with a 1.8 lens wide open, using centre focus then adjusting composition. I suppose it could be difficult using a faster lens still (?). I have never really got on with the faff of moving the focus points (on a K5).

I am (I'm afraid) going to be the odd one out here, in light of the adjectives used above. I would be the first to acknowledge that in the Lake District there are plenty of subjects besides the lakes and the fells, but even so, apart from the first shot, where a fell is nicely lit, these elements play second fiddle. In the second shot, the light looks as though it's casting some nice light somewhere -- but not (much) within the shot. In the third, the foreground (half the picture) is asphalt, which provides good leading lines but not much pleasure to this beholder. The fourth and the fifth likewise have too great an expanse of relatively uninteresting foreground. In the fifth, the sun's rays are an effective part of the shot.

These are, in truth, a worthy set of shots, not bad at all. But I'm afraid on this occasion my reaction is a bit more subdued than other people's.