Adapter wise I think requirements depend on what you use the Q for. I think the telephoto capabilities of the Q are great in situations where you simply have no option than to get closer to the subject. Obvious uses are sporting events, such as to overcome the London 2012 restriction on long lenses, the Moon and Kate Middleton. Some people like to use extravagant setups for wildlife but I've only ever seen average results. Extreme macro the easy wasy gives fair to middling results too. For fast moving subjects, extreme telephoto and flash use then an official adapter is probably worth considering, but for the vast majority of subjects I think the aftermarket £30er will do exactly the same job. Whether the £250 price difference (estimated with optional collar) is justified by the better build quality and built in shutter will be interesting to hear.

The specs and function are published. The only unknown that I can determine is what will be the maximum input value for shake reduction.

Someone will have to buy one to find out what it does!

It looks well built, but not £250 well built. I bought the camera and two lenses for that. I'd want something with glass in for that dosh.

I took manual aperture control to mean that it is manual. The manual aperture control ring looks very similar to my cheapo version.

The tripod ring is an optional extra too! I imagine this would appeal to private eyes and paps for this money.

I'm not sure that it could have as it has a manual aperture ring. That's why I think it is way overpriced too.

It must be time based. The old PPG didn't seem to be. From the same batch of uploads one picture could be accepted very quickly, whereas another could take a long time to be rejected. Also, decisions were made during what appeared to be working hours in the US. Images were accepted directly into the Premiere Collection, these approvals could take a long time. All that suggests to me a degree of manual intervention, probably a judging panel.

With the new system if I upload a batch of five photos then a decision is reached on all at the same time and that is at any time of day or night, weekends and holidays. It is highly unlikely that all my photos always receive the same number of votes. Therefore my guess is that after a period of time if a certain positive/negative ratio is reached then the photo is accepted. possibly also depending on a certain minimum number of votes cast. It would be good if the criteria were explained, I don't think they are stringent enough. It would be good if the system were audited too, I have my doubts that is working as intended.

The Premiere Collection I am certain is judgemental, images are batch processed sporadically and there are some that would certainly not have gained more votes (or a higher approve/decline ratio) than others not making it. Whilst there are some outstanding Collection images, there are others whose presence cannot be justified by photographic merit.

I had a K7 as a replacement for a faulty K20. I thought the noise levels were awful, upgraded to a K5.

Absolutely not. Better to learn how to take a sharp photograph.

Welcome from a Man of Kent (just) now in France.

Quite an obvious algorithm use really, surprised it has taken that long, but nonetheless impressive results (prima facia).

I'm sure that future image quality will have as much to owe to mathematicians as to lens designers, probably much more.

All a bit geek central that place.

I have this one. Any K mount lens works with it. It is reasonably well made, the aperture control is OK but not precision engineered. Good enough for my purposes. You gave to use green button metering of course (as you do with the official version). The Pentax adapter has a built in shutter which I believe circumvents the rolling shutter effect, which I have witnessed on fast moving objects. The official version also has advantages for flash sync. speeds, which again doesn't concern me. I do think the official version is stupid money.