Congratulations. Your pictures are always worth looking at.

But what will you do if you win? A Nikon? I suppose there's always Ebay.

Thanks for that link. I've saved it for when I've got a few free minutes.

I take your point about internal resistance of the batteries, but a properly designed gun should not allow higher currents than it can safely handle whatever the internal resistance of the power source.

The price Pentax charge for these guns, I would hope they design them properly.

It's a long time since I did Physics, so perhaps I'm missing something, but I don't see how NIMHs are going to produce more current, except under conditions of such heavy use that other batteries have started to give up the ghost while the NIMHs continue to plough on. Then, the NIMHs would still be producing the normal current, while the other batteries would no longer have the power to do so.
It is I suppose possible that the gun is not designed for continous flashing, (sort of testing to destruction) and that only with high-capacity NIMHs would you be able to create such a situation.
If that is a worry, then the answer is not to use the gun in that way - which in normal circumstances one wouldn't. Or I wouldn't!
Please correct me if I'm wrong.

They are only more powerful in the sense of having greater storage capacity. Their voltage is just the usual nominal 1.5 volts so they can't fry your flashgun, just as a 6 volt motorbike battery wouldn't (as long as you used one, not four!).
I have an AF400FTZ and use NIMHs. They haven't fried it yet!

This is a wind-up, unless you were in Dixons, in which case the person who said it probably thought it was true. He may also have been related to Tony Blair, who is also prone to believe the unbelievable.
A microdrive is simply a file storage device which records what it receives. It cannot possibly interfere with the data itself (except by destroying it totally).
It is possible that the drive could behave erratically until warmed up, but this would not manifest itself as an exposure problem.

Taking it back seems like your best option. Good luck.

If you are attaching the camera directly to the computer via a USB cable (or whatever it uses) then you should make sure you are using the Pentax software. You don't mention that the Pentax software is actually up and running, and that you are using it.

If you are using a card reader, then the easiest thing is to plug it in, then go into My Computer and look for an icon for a removeable drive - in other words, the card reader. (Ignore and close any silly Windows dialogue boxes that appear automatically when you insert the card.)

Double click to open the folder, and then explore whatever sub-folders you see until you come across a list of .jpg files. Try to copy them onto the desktop or wherever using Ctrl-C or the mouse.

If you can get the .jpg files onto your desktop, then any image program should be able to read them. For my money, IrfanView is the best of them all, and is free.

If all that doesn't work, then you may have a faulty camera/card/card reader/computer. Find somebody competent and ask them to investigate.

Good luck.

The M 75-150 f4 is a very nice little lens, too. Very sharp.

There is an M 200mm f4 going on Ebay Uk at the moment. You'll like the price - currently £1 - but no doubt it will go up.

I think the poster was talking about Pentax M lenses. The Ricoh problem is fairly well-known, but in fairness Ricoh don't suggest that you should use their lenses on Pentax cameras.

You need to apply the firmware revision, available from the Pentax website, and then you can meter quite satisfactorily with K and M lenses.