I had the same problems with mine, a set of Enerloop re-chargables did the trick, any other types and it would soon show low battery once again. I seem to recall there were a number of threads about this a few years back.

Hi Peter,

I had this particular lens, which I used mainly for railway photography too (until it came to grief after an incident with a frozen metal gate, but I'd rather not be reminded of that). It was a nice lens, with good bright images, but did suffer with a lot of pincussion distortion at 200mm, and there was also a certain amount of 'barrel creep' when carrying it and no way of locking it down.

After breaking it I bought a Pentax 50-200mm WR lens instead and have never regretted that choice, as well as the excellent weatherproofing, I think it gives much nicer images and better quality too. The Tamron is great as a convenient lens which doesn't need changing for wider angle shots, but as you can get get the Pentax for around the same amount I would pick that over it anyday after having used both of them.

I still have my old K100D, and having just spent a little time going through some photos taken with it back in 2010, I have to say that the quality is still more than acceptible, especially when put through newer software. The main downside with it was that it was a bit of a struggle at high ISOs or in lower light, but on photos taken in better conditions I was more than happy with the results. I won't ever part with this camera, if my K5 ever fails I will be really glad that I have this as a back up.

Slightly better view of it in last night's programme, looks like a K-5 with the 18-55mm lens attached. Wonder if Ben is a forum member?

dpreview now have a 'preview' of this camera on their YouTube site: link

I was in the local PC World/Currys today, and they had a Pentax K-r on display, and that's about the only thing Pentax I've seen locally in recent weeks. Even some of the local camera shops, which advertise Pentax stuff as being 'in stock' on their websites don't actually have any at all when you go and visit the shops in person, a local Pentax Pro centre had only one Pentax lens in the shop and nothing else at all when I last visited a couple of weeks back. Looks like orders via the internet just get forwarded on to Pentax and items are despatched direct from there.

It wasn't this bad in recent years, so I hope things pick up again soon, I'd much rather try items out or have them in my hand before buying, but this is getting much harder, or almost impossible to do in many areas now.

Just brought home a nice shiny new K-5 with 18-55mm lens, for anyone still waiting for a lower price check out this offer from Jessops, and also SRS, who seem to have lowered their price in response, no doubt others will soon follow:

Jessops offer link

SRS link

Both now at £829!

Looks like some price movement at last, SRS are showing body only as £879, and with 18-55 WR lens as £949. K-5 + 18-135 = £1,319. Some of the other dealers I've checked have also lowered their prices too.

You can check the movement on the camera pricebuster site here:

ePHOTOzine also gave the K-5 2nd place and the K-R 3rd place to the Nikon D3S in its list of the top 11 best dSLRs reviewed by them:

ephotozine article

That's because they're not selling any due to all us potential buyers being on this thread waiting for the prices to come down!