Jamie,
Any lawyer will tell you it is all in the wording.
I do have to agree with you that it looks like a bit of a gimmick on that lens.
Now, just out of arm's reach I have a P50, fitted with a Tamron Adaptall-2 in 17mm F2.5. When I stick that lens on my K20D it behaves like a 24mm (really, it should be 23.5, but who is counting?). If I stick the 18-55 kit lens onto the P50, it vignettes until I have zoomed out to about 24mm equivalent.
The glass does not change, only the behaviour of the system changes.
You see, I am conditioned (long story) to think of lens, body, and photographer as the system.
Think about using extension tubes - they do not change the focal length of the lens, but they do change the size of the image at the picture plane because they have altered the system. True, you can calculate the effect of an extension tube, but who does? The manufacturers do not bother because they do not know what lens the tubes will be used with, or what combination the tubes will be used in.

I did find your quote from Ansel Adams interesting, in that a 1980 publication pre-dates the Sony Mavica by a year, the Nikon SVC by 6 years, and the Kodak KAF-1400 M1 (generally considered as the first usable DSLR) by 8 years. The statement about the image not being magnified is of course correct, but the "1.6 multplier" does give an image at the picture plane that is larger than the sensor. This is not magnification in the true sense of the word - but it sure does act like it.

Geoff

I think you should re-read the quote/URLs that you gave, Jamie.
It is no advertising gimmick to label a 70-300mm lens as 140-600mm equivalent. This is a way of stating exactly how it will behave on a digital camera as compared to a 35mm one.
Some of us still use film, and lenses designed for film, and it is useful to know roughly what to expect when we transfer lenses.
Quite apart from anything else, it does tell one what the shake could be like - try hand held shots with a 500mm mirror lens on a 35mm and then with the same lens on a digital. True, the focal length will not change, but the behaviour of the system will.
Think about it.

Geoff

Both save and open.
It is never a bad idea to save your edits in .psd as there is no compression and thus no degradation.
Only use .jpg if you have to for external reasons.

Geoff

The first thing I always look for is the groove for the locking pin.
Then I look for the "A" and the locking pip for the A setting.
Apart from 3 and 5, some of the others do not "feel" right - but it is hard to judge with out of focus shots.
Geoff

That is exactly what I did with a 135/2.8 Hoya.
Provided you can get the mount off wthout disturbing anything else, it is usually an easy job.You want insulation from a bit of solid core cable, use the pin protusion to determine the length, slit the cable fragment along its length (makes fitting it easy)depress the pin and ease the cable sheathing into place. Then refit the mount. This is best done wide open.
You need a scalpel (or similar) a pair of tweezers, and some small screwdrivers.

Geoff

What a shame a piece of spamming scum had to latch onto this really great image.

Faced with a need for a really good tripod (health problems meant that I was having difficulty holding my K20 up) I changed the head on one I had already.
It was a good strong tripod that I bought in France with a telescope attached.
The scope had been given away when I really had no use for it, but I kept the tripod (with a very clumsey pan & tilt head that looked like it was desugned for a U-Matic video camera.

Taking the head off (standard screw fitting) and replacing it with a budget Redsnapper head gave me a usable tool with a QR plate. I found Redsnapper very easy to deal with - and I thought the quality very good as well.

Can you fit a head of your choice onto the Quantaray legs?

Geoff

If you must go off-Pentax ...
Tamron Adaptall-2 17mm f3.5

One of these plus a KA Adaptall-2 adapter would cost a good bit less.
As a bonus, you could use the adapter on other Adaptall-2 lenses.
And, no, mine is not for sale.

Geoff

Shoot both (raw + jpg) after you have set RAW to DNG.
PSE10 or 11 will open both.
As soon as you have edited a RAW it is saved as a jpg (but I have known PSE10 save an altered RAW file) - RTFM.
You can now do all the other editing you want in PSE and save the file as one of the loss-less type (TIFF, PSD, etc). Go back and change it as much as you like, just don't turn it into a jpg until you need to.
Lightroom is good when you need to make the same corrections to a batch of images.
Geoff

No.1 for sure.
Darken the path a bit (like to the shadow area), and lose the shadows on the grass.
Geoff