Never bothered with the Nikon forum as it's always looking at what Canon are doing, and a brief foray on the Canon EOS forum (to sell GF's macro lens) told me that was a boring place to stay. Most are on TP, AP or DPReview, and again it's Nikon vs Canon.

I think John had summed it up well in his most recent post (11.10) - the Goodbye posts together with the reaction suck - discussion about the competition is fine except when it descends into the Canikon tribal warfare.

To the PU team - as there is a French football team sponsored by Pentax we are surely allowed a Football thread. Oui?

There is a team in France sponsored by Pentax - can we have a football thread

Yes, it is a specialist site for Pentax - but it is not owned by Pentax or Ricoh, yet I look at my screen and there is an advert for Legal and General - who might get business from this forum, yet not related to Ricoh.

I honestly do not think PentaxUser should be blinkered so as to exclude discussions of other brands, as it in many cases it is what Pentax offers above and beyond the competition that drives us to buy Pentax in the first place.

Does Pentax or Ricoh read this or PF? discussions regarding the competition would probably give some market research analysis information that is invaluable to development of a new product. For instance, there may be a groundswell of disssatifaction on here that the K-50 does not have a swivelling LCD; the inclusion of such a feature might help future buyers from other brands to buy Pentax. Feedback from here is more useful that analysis done by say Jessops or PwC.

Like many on here I have invested in Full-Frame, many people outside the photographic community have asked me why I have not ditched my Pentax gear. So easily I could've bought a D7100 to complement the D3, yet I prefer to spend my Christmas money on the K-3. So, I think discussion regarding the K-3 vs competition should be allowed, but accept that brand-bashing fanboy-style ought to be curbed. After all, we are not engaging in name-calling, political, religious or controversial discussions that would warrant immediate bans on other fora (or bullying on the other forum).

I was reading the comments on the poll near the beginning and it appeared the Nikon side were rather admiring of the K-3 and completely underwhelmed by the Df (ONE SD card slot? and D600 innards) but it was the Canon side that failed to see beyond their blinkers. Not surprising really.

Easy one - put the Pentax in a small space with a Nikon and a Canon and chuck a bucket of water over them I went whale watching with my Canon owning other half in choppy seas, the rocking boat made me ill, the water killed the 50D, my K20D was fine

:JEALOUS:

AF performance is key, but when you are trying to get photos of flighty birds that don't sit still for long you need fast shutter speeds, so when you do go for longer lengths, such as 300, a faster aperture such as f4 will make a lot of difference, otherwise you get a lot of shots of blurred coloured things.

A good option to consider is the Sigma EX 70-200 f2.8 and an EX1.4 converter...I used that option before I was seduced by the DA*60-250

What lenses do you have WKG? Possible that with an upgrade to one of the 16MP bodies you'll get more satisfactory results from your current set up.

For wildlife I suggest a brighter lens, a 2.8 or 4, such as the DA*300, I was using my K-5 with my 150-500 and still struggled to get decent shutter speeds at ISO800 when trying to catch blue, coal and grey tits in my parents back garden....

I agree with Mike - I think Double Whoppers are better.

As for hides - there are plenty of advertisers in the back of Outdoor Photography who can advise....I think it might be a considerable outlay even for the most basic kit, even then you need to find ways to keep occupied while waiting for the birds to appear....

Good luck

Security guards at CDG were baffled by my rocket blower when I transitted through on my way to Japan. They looked at it, asked what it does, I demonstrated how it works and for about 10-20 seconds the guard went to his colleagues blowing air into their faces...hilarity all round.

That's the ONLY only good experience of that horrid airport.