The hold luggage is still x-ray'd - and potentially in bigger, more heavy duty machines.
If your friend can fit a couple of rolls into their hand luggage it would probably be best.

There are still some concessions though. In UK airports you can supposedly purchase items at some type of discount, which I thought was the VAT - but I take your point, as you have to pay sales tax somewhere in the EU.
There were lots of posters around with this sort of information when I was in the airport a couple of weeks ago;
http://www.parkandsave.co.uk/gatwick/gatwick-airport-shopping.html

I guess the EU discount is probably just a gimick by the retailers.

Sorry, got my wires crossed a little bit. These were the 16GB ones I bought on Amazon (they're not sandisk);
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Integral-16GB-UltimaPro-SDHC-Class/dp/B003ZDNLIW


In the Dixons in Gatwick north the 16GB Sandisks were £56.
I had bought these 8GB Sandisk cards from Amazon, when they were £10.99 a piece;
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sandisk-20MB-Extreme-Video-Class/dp/B000Y9TZ9Y
Looks like they're £16.50 now so not such a bargain.

Fair points. I think you'd get them cheaper stopping at a PC World, or similar, before getting to the airport.
Also, when travelling in Europe you should still not have to pay UK VAT - technically things should be at least 20% cheaper than they are in the high street. That never seems to be the case though...

Might be worth a try giving them a ring;
http://www.dixonstravel.co.uk/
They claim to do some level of price matching, and you can reserve in advance, then pay. Obviously they can quote you a price based on your final destination.

If you are going to buy some cards, I'd suggest buying them online and not at the airport.
I was amused last month to see the 16GB Extreme III card I bought for less than 20 quid through amazon, at three times that price in the Dixons "duty free" store in Gatwick.

I felt it slowed things down a lot on my K5.

This was most noticeable when I was trying to shoot some friends at Go Ape not long ago, and wanted to use machine gun mode for zip-lines etc. I only got every other person, as I was waiting ages for the camera to process the buffer each time.

Not had a chance to try an "on" and "off" shot to see how much difference it actually makes. In future though, for time critical shots, it's going to be switched off...

Something else to bear in mind is taking a note of the serial numbers of anything you send out - to avoid unscrupulous people returning already broken items.

Does 135mm give enough reach for a sporting event where you're a long way away? You might want to consider the 60-250 instead. It's F4 rather than F2.8 wide open - but that shouldn't be a problem at an outdoor event during the day.
Great image quality, and might give you a bit more flexibility.

Or, is the autofocus switched off? Do you hear the motor whirring when the button is pressed as well?
Might be worth taking off the lens, and re-seating it - in case somethings jammed.

Something you might want to consider is getting a cheap K5 grip from ebay. That'll take 6 AA betteries, or unbrandded equivalent batteries. You won't have to worry about poor quality batteries ruining the camera - they'll just ruin the cheap grip.

I have one of these cheap grips, and they do genuinely feel cheap. The buttons and wheels aren't great quality, and the plastic feels cheap. If I was only using it as an extra power store, I might not be as annoyed with the grip.