I've arranged to get the lens cleaned next week so I can explore its capabilities properly, although in the meantime I'll try some wide open work.

It does just feel the right general purpose focal length for me. I noticed they can command silly asking prices. Luckily for me the 31 would need to be seven times better than my poor man's 31 to justify the (with servicing) price difference.

Thanks for all the comments. It's a good question Velimir. In France it works the other way round. The default position is that photography is permitted. If parents don't want their children to be photographed at school then they sign a form to withdraw their consent.

Some with my new toy, no editing. Sticky aperture so it needs a good clean but I think this might just be my new favourite lens. It's a lovely focal length.

SMC K30f2.8 aka the poor man's 31.

I don't see how they would have got a ff to market in such little time as I doubt it was a Hoya project and Ricoh wouldn't have greenlighted it immediately. I fully expect a top of the range APSC but no ff yet.

I've seen some really good deals on used Q's. A Q with 5-15 zoom went recently in France for £110 and at that price it is just a no brainer for the fun factor. There are compromises to be made on image quality but the diminuitive size and excellent handling makes it well worthwhile imo. Personally, and having tried, I wouldn't bother with adapted K lenses apart from certain very specific applications as the IQ can be very ropey. But used for what is was intended then I think the Q has advantages over anything else on the market. I would never use one as a main camera but as a complementary option it's just great.

I've bought a 55-300 lens hood, remote control, K to Q adaptor and some lens caps.

All have been good quality and a whole lot cheaper than official Pentax accessories which are sometimes way overpriced in my opinion. Such as the Mount adaptor K at £65 - I remember when they doubled the price overnight. If Pentax priced accessories on a sensible markup then they would probably make more money on them. Why buy an official lens hood for £42 rather than a very well made copy for £8. I doubt there's much difference in the cost to manufacture.

Unusual and interesting image, very well captured.

Thanks Gareth. The FA43 is a superb lens. I would actually recommend it over the 77, I just find it more versatile. It's cheaper too. For these shots I chose the 43 over the 77 due to confined spaces plus I like to get close to the kids and muck around a bit.

I really enjoy photographing children, probably my favourite genre. Here are some portraits I took at a school event - it was a Maths games day for a few of the local primary schools. I imagine it would be hard to do this in the UK now, fortunately in France attitudes are more relaxed.

Photos are taken with the FA43 and the newly acquired A24, which I bought for landscapes but found that it was surprisingly pleasing to use wide open for portraiture, albeit a bit tricky to focus.

Probably too image heavy but I quite like Smeggy style posting of lots of images from an event:

It's an informal, very natural and relaxed portrait. There's nothing not to like. Make the most of it while you can.