Thanks for your comments
With regard to shooting monochrome or colour, that's a difficult one. I get around it by shooting RAW and deciding on one or the other when I view and PP the image. Bit of a cop out I guess

Hi Chris,
had a look your PEF files and yes there is slight tint to the image in comparison to the K10D image. Which one is closer to what you see? I ask because both look fine to me when you adjust the exposure on the K-7 file (I notice you had added +1 EV with the K10D image).
What would also be interesting is to see the results with auto white balance selected and exactly the same aperture, shutter speed etc.
Selecting daylight for the white balance settings in CaptureOne does give a result a little closer to the K10D.
If you don't mind I'd be happy to post the images here (or email) so you can see the output.

Messing about in our back garden today. Taken with the 16-50 and 60-250.
C&C welcomed

Thaw freeze

[IMG]http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/4606/thrawfreeze.jpg[/IMG]

Diagonals

[IMG]http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/594/diagonals.jpg[/IMG]

Until Spring

[IMG]http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/2368/untilspring.jpg[/IMG]

Bitumen sandwich

[IMG]http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/182/bitumensandwich.jpg[/IMG]

Hi Colin, you will find the Katz Eye screen especially useful with your lovely little A 50mm f/1.7.... nice bright aperture and manual focus

PM sent Chris

Hi Colin, yes I went for the OptiBrite option, it is said to improve the brightness with slower lenses (I was thinking more of the occasional use I put my 18-55 and 50-200 here) otherwise I might not have bothered.

Hi Chris, firstly welcome to the forum

I haven't notice this Serpia tone you mention with my K-7 PEF RAW files. I mainly use CaptureOne occasionally in combination with Helicon Filter.
Have you tried both PEF and DNG? Because some programs have a particular affiliation to either file type, for example CaptureOne supports PEF much better than DNG. So it maybe a Picasa thing?

I would be happy to look at a PEF file if you want to email me one to run through CaptureOne.

Let me know If you would like to try that and I'll send you a PM.

Stefan, powerful graphic card development is all about the generation of almost 100% 3D graphics in a gaming situation these days. Digital image processing doesn't use this capacity in anything like the way 3D gaming does. For this reason I would suggest Colin would be wasting his money going for a ATI 5xxx series, much better go for something like a 4xxx which can be had for around £100 mark and do everything he wants and more (still very capable gaming card). All IMHO of course.

Could go either way Roger

By the way thanks Dave it will be interesting to hear about differences if any. WR always appeals to me, it's just a shame in wasn't to DA* standard.

Dave, do you have happen to have a DFA 100 f/2.8, just wondering if you are able to make a comparison