I've finally managed to upload some photos I took with my new K5 and 21,43 and 55-300 lenses. I've also just created a Flickr account so you can see them at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/71561637@N02/

Let me know what you think.

Hi parigby

I was interested in your views on the 60-250. It was the bulk and weight that put me off that one. However, the 55-300 is like a feather in comparison, and very reasonable in quality, particularly up to 200 or so.

If you're keen on wide angles (and your having a 10-20 suggests you are!) then the 21 makes a very compact package with the K5 for everyday use.

Thanks for the input and suggestions everyone. At present I'm trying everything I've got in various combinations, and I'm sure I'll settle on a basic kit soon.

The 31/15 combination was definitely something I considered seriously, and if it had been a similar price/size to the 43/21 I'd have snapped it up in a second. However, the 31 was huge compared to the 43, and the 31/15 combo also cost twice as much as the 21/43, although all four have good reputations.

When I realised the 43/21 combo wasn't for me, I did consider the 31 again. However, I wanted the most compact macro, and having decided to buy the 35 macro, getting the 31 as well seemed a bit of a luxury.

The Tamron is a bit of a left field choice, but I was offered it second hand for under £200, and although I've used primes historically, I don't have anything against zooms in principle. I didn't think I had much to lose by trying it.

The 70 is an amazing piece of optical engineering, since it's even smaller than any telephotos for the Leica M mount. It's not a greatly used focal length for me, but I doubt I'll take the 55-300 everywhere, so I plan to have the 70 with me when I'm travelling light. I'll have to see how it works in practice.

I've had some fun with the 55-300 already. It's got an amazing reach, even longer (and the same size/weight) as the 45-200 I used on MFT. I'll have to sort through the images and post some.

Wow, it looks like a lot of thought's gone into this question already! I've tried changing AF to the rear button alone, and will keep it that way for a while to see how I get on. Focusing is a bit awkward at the minute (I keep missing the button) but I'm sure it will get better with practice. Thanks guys.

Having sold my Leica M film system earlier this year, and having used an MFT system briefly, the Pentax K5 actually seemed big and heavy when I first picked it up. In use however, I found that it fitted nicely into my Billingham bag, and squeezed into the smaller bag I use for walking. I think I may have to replace the latter with something a little larger, but I expected that would be the case.

I also found the handling of the camera superb. Before I sold my Leicas I'd never used an autofocus camera for serious work before, and it's taken some time for me to get used to simple things like having the aperture and shutter speed in the viewfinder! However, the intuitive design of the K5 has made this a much less painful process, and I am staggered by the customisation it offers. It also has a carved-from-solid feel I find very reassuring.

The performance is simply breathtaking. For me, the autofocus is blistering, although my sole reference point is a Canon Eos 30 I played with about 10 years ago! Being able to take virtually noise free pictures at iso 1600 is a huge improvement on the Panasonic G1 I used briefly - the advantage is a good 2-3 stops. Dynamic range is also superb, as long as you don't clip the highlights.

The only niggle I have is with how to focus by scale. That was what I did for most landscape work before, but I find it hard to do it on the K5. The lenses have depth of field scales, but the focus throws are so short they're hard to use. Also, having focused by scale using quickshift, I keep finding that I then press the shutter button down half way and refocus somewhere else! I expect I will just have to get used to using the depth of field preview in the viewfinder instead of the scale.

So, all in all, I'm very satisfied with my choice. Now I just need to start putting it to some good use!

One thing to consider is if you will get on with the 40mm focal length. I have the 43mm, and find it too long to be a useful walkabout lens, though it's brilliant for other things. Whether you have the same issue depends on your photographic style, of course.

I've recently moved over from a Leica M based system to the K5. Hopefully I'll talk about the K5 in another post, but I thought I'd give my experiences of the lens system too.

I was used to using primes, and specifically a wide angle/standard/telephoto combination with the Leica so I thought I'd get something like that for Pentax as well. In fact, one of the reasons I chose Pentax was because of the high quality prime lenses they had.

Unfortunately, I found the choice wasn't quite as great as I hoped. The 15mm was too wide to be a regular lens for me; my widest lens on film was 28mm. The obvious choice to replace this was the 21 limited, so I got that first of all.

For a standard lens, there was lots of choice, but I did want a fast lens, and that meant either the 31 limited, the 43 limited. I really wanted the 31 limited, as that would be just wider than 50mm in film terms, but it seemed a bit close to the 21mm, so I went for the 43 limited instead. As for the telephoto, I decided I wanted to have at least one macro lens, since I had come to enjoy doing the odd macro shot with my digital compact. That made the 100 macro an obvious choice, and I got one second hand with an aperture ring but without weatherproofing.

So how did it work in practice?

On the good side, I liked all three lenses. The 43 is the stand-out performer, as I expected, since I first heard about that lens before I had any intention of getting a Pentax. From 2.8 down it is brutally sharp, as sharp as my 50 Summicron. At f2/1.9 it is low contrast and soft at the edges, but in a pleasant way. The 21 limited feels the most Leica-like in the hands, with a beautiful compact body and smooth focus. It is very sharp in the centre, but not quite so sharp at the edges, and it also has some barrel distortion. The 100 macro is wonderfully sharp, but quite large for someone coming from rangefinders, and is not made of metal like the others.

Unfortunately, I found the system didn't really work for me. I'm not seriously into macro work, so most of the time I used the 21 and 43 as a two lens combo. That covered most options nicely, but wasn't really comfortable in action. The 21 was too wide for me to enjoy using it on the camera all the time - 35 was always the widest I had permanently mounted on a camera in my film days. To make matters worse, I didn't really get on with the focal length of the 43. For my style of photography, it was just too long to be a walkabout lens, and I kept reaching for my 21. Then I'd find that a bit wide and would reach for the 43 again...At the same time, 21 wasn't quite wide enough to be my widest lens, especially indoors.

It may sound odd for someone who has only used primes, but I'm a bit lazy about changing lenses - perhaps because I always had one Leica with a 35 shooting colour and one for black and white with a 50. My initial combination therefore didn't work for me at all, and was definitely less than the sum of its component parts.

I therefore decided to bite the bullet and have another go. I've ordered the 35 macro, which I'm sure will double up as a walkabout 50 Summicron replacement and as a macro lens on the limited number of occasions I need that. I've also ordered the Tamron 17-50 f2.8 to see how I get on with a zoom lens. For the long end I've ordered the 70 limited, which is much more compact than the 100 macro, and I've also picked up a really cheap and compact 55-300 with a plastic mount in case I need something longer. I'm sure I'll get a combination that works out of that lot, and will then sell on what I don't need anymore.

Clearly, my bad choice of lenses isn't Pentax' fault. However, my only gripe is that, although Pentax seem like they cover a good range in the abstract, in practice you find gaps and omissions. There are no fast lenses of less than 43mm apart from the 31 limited, and that is very expensive. The only wide-angle limited lenses are the 15 and the 21, and they are very slow. Even worse, there's no fast moderate wide angle, like a 24 f2 limited. What they have is clearly top kit, but for photographers that like primes, it's all about the best team, not the best players.

Hi everyone, I thought I'd introduce myself and explain what first made me buy a Pentax camera.

I used a Leica M6 system for many years and vowed I'd never go digital, but about 3 years ago I got sick of friends and family complaining I never had photos to share online or email. I therefore bought a Panasonic bridge camera - just for less serious work you understand. I was amazed - the quality was much higher than I had expected. I could make some very nice A4 prints from it, and enjoyed being able to do some telephoto and macro work for the first time since I went rangefinder only!

I found a place for it in my regular bag, but only in addition to my Leicas. After a couple of years however, I realised I was only really using film when the mood took me, and most of my family snaps were now on the digital camera. I wondered what a more capable digital system might do, and at what cost.

Sadly I couldn't afford an M9, but I was stunned when I checked the value of my Leica gear on ebay and realised the lenses were worth many times what I paid for them. I decided I couldn't justify having that amount of money on a system I now used less often, and decided to sell it.

I didn't want a huge DSLR, so thought MFT might be for me, especially if I kept one of my old lenses. I was at home with the small size of the MFT kit, but I didn't find the quality quite the jump from my bridge camera I was expecting.

I tried a Fuji X100 next, and loved the quality of the images, but found it was not quite a finished camera, and the fixed lens was too restricting.

It was then I discovered that not all DSLRs were so very large, and in the K5 Pentax had a relatively small but exceptionally good camera which cost little more than the better MFT models. It even had some nice primes, and was compatible with amazing value analogue cameras so I could still use HP5 when the mood took me.

Anyway, I'm now a proud owner of a K5 and some lenses, and although it's early days, it all seems promising so far. I do miss my Summicrons still, but it's amazing what I could afford in exchange! I hope to let you know how I get on and my further thoughts on the Pentax system once I've had a chance to put it through its paces.