In photography, some things can be cheap and cheerful. Unfortunately for the pocket, tripods are not amongst them. If you need a tripod, get a decent one. Really just echoing Mike's advice above.

A good beginning with your Pentax. All shots nicely framed. The light only really allows the last one to sing, and for that reason also the b&w shots are more successful than the top colour one, where the uninteresting buildings in the distance are lit rather than your main subject. As the days get longer, your working day will finish before the sun has disappeared

Thanks Dan

Thanks for the comments. It's a pity about the electronic level - it's not essential but since it's there, it's rather unfortunate to have a feature that cannot be relied upon. Dan you are of course right: I remembered wrongly. But what does overlay the bottom part of LV, albeit in grey, is the exposure scale and histogram and it was those that were hiding a clear check on the bottom of the picture. Perhaps they can be turned off (?). In light of others' comments, my screen may simply not be firing on all four cylinders - as I mentioned, I did have the opportunity to check it with a few other displays, on Nikons, Canons, etc (but alas on no other Pentax), and it was definitely the dim cousin!

I've had my K5 for a few years now, but have almost never bothered with live view for taking pictures. However, last weekend I decided to give it a try and found the display inadequate, even though set to brightest setting. I realize any display is going to struggle in sunlight, so this is a comparative observation (looking also at a few other screens on other camera models in the same lighting situations) rather than expecting the unattainable. Even when I could see the screen by draping a dark cloth over the camera, I couldn't see the lowest part of the image because it was overlaid by shooting info, rather than that info being set apart. I then used the electronic level (which I usually ignore in the viewfinder)and found it inaccurate to a noticeable degree. Have others had the same experience? If so, does the mk II offer an improvement. Meanwhile, I'm going back to using the viewfinder and making old-fashioned checks on the straightness of the horizon.

Trouble is, you only discover which companies are 'good' if a claim arises. First thing to check is that you are not double-insuring. If you have household insurance, it may give you a certain amount of cover for items taken with you. If not, make sure that any travel insurance doesn't attach terms that are impractical for you.

The main need is adequate medical cover and arrangements for repatriation if necessary. Most companies, at least on paper, offer adequate cover in that respect. Be aware of the effect of excesses. I once had to claim for cancellation of a holiday: four people were involved and the £200 excess resulted in 4 x £200 being removed from the claim. I have only claimed twice, both times on an Insure and Go policy: the first time (the cancellation) was settled speedily: there would have been no excuse for doing otherwise, but it was good to see it work as it should. The second was for additional expenses arising out of delays caused by the Icelandic ash cloud, and that claim was declined. Many insurers, but not all, took a similar stance. (We were using a European airline and so had a route to reimbursement that way.)

Boring as it is, shop around on the internet to find what you want. You could do worse than start out with the advice on a site such as http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/insurance/cheap-travel-insurance. There's no short-cut to reading the boring small print, I'm afraid. Oh, and do declare any pre-existing medical conditions.

Sounds a great trip. -- have fun.

[quote:3496ace15f="alig"]

I still think it's a bloody disgrace that we, the consumer, have to pay to have this known fault repaired.quote]

a number of questions: how long have you had the lens?
how much use does it get?
have you owned it from new?
if so, have you been in touch with the retailer?

if the answers to the first three are in the realm of: 2-3 years, moderate or light use, and yes, you may have a good case against the retailer under the SOGA. But you will need to gather evidence that the fault was inherent in the design or manufacture. It's not impossible, from the sound of it, but it will be a slog and you may have to commission a report from a well-qualified engineer in the field to back up your instinct. You'll have to decide for yourself whether it's worth the struggle.

The first step, though, is to approach the retailer and perhaps Pentax (though you have no rights in relation to Pentax under SOGA) and just lay out the facts and see what response you get. Presumably (from your last post) you've already done that and await responses (?).

OK - failed to upload the image. here's trying again.

I managed to get a very similar effect,on the right hand-side of this pic, though didn't even notice it until after I'd uploaded (definitely time for a trip to the optician). The pic was taken with an 8mm fisheye in RAW format, but is nothing to do with camera or lens so far as I can tell. It appeared once I'd exported it from Lightroom as a tif file and then saved it again as a jpeg. It was the only one in a batch affected that way and I just assumed the switching of formats had scrambled something.

It's a film on the BBC News website including stills of his photos. I suspect it is blocked to viewers outside certain territories (UK? Europe?) for (c) reasons.