It's more the mirror merchanism rather than the shutter. Focal plane shutters are very, very quiet, as Leica rangefinder users will attest.

Is it louder than any other DSLR?

Interfit IR Trigger works a treat with studio flash.

No, the Jacobs offer was what I had in mind. Pity, still, even £99.99 is pretty good.

I think some of the Jessops clearance stores are or have been selling the Pentax version for around £107.00

I think that within 28 days you might have been entitled to a replacement, the trouble with web purchases is that you can't get a human being to stretch the rules and do the exchange anyway.

But two months is not long, so I'd give it a go anyway. Write a letter putting your case, keep it polite but firm and hope for the best. It is the suppliers responsibility to sort it out in any event, at least in the UK.

If there is going to be any delay I'd be tempted to buy the Samsung one for £49.99 and get most or all of that back later on via an eBay sale.

Absolutely, take it back as soon as you can.

I'm not sure how accurate the design of the 50-200mm is, but lenses that should keep their focus don't always, and I would imagine the wider the zoom range the less likely focus is to hold.

A zoom technically means focus is kept spot-on as you zoom. A varifocal has to be refocused at every focal length setting. There will be a point where a cheap badly designed "zoom" is actually more of a varifocal. To be honest, I usually refocus after zooming as a matter of habit.

Lenses are not perfect in many respects, bith optical and mechanical.

Club members get a 20% discount on servicing.

Depth of field will render some sharpness to either side of the plane focused on and is generally well understood.

There is also some leeway in a similar way at the point the lens focuses the image on - the point where the film or CCD would be optimally placed. This is depth of focus.

The mirror must also be correctly placed to ensure that the distances are precise between the observed and the exposed images. This is why cleaning the mirror is definitely off the agenda as it is so easy to put it out of register.

Normally all these things are fine, or at least within acceptable limits, but if out of adjustment will prevent accurate focusing.

For normal subjects the test is less demanding than for test charts, even fairly close up, taking a portrait as an example we wouldn't mormally use f1.4 but might use f8 to ensure the whole face is in focus. Maybe under studio flash we would use f11 or f16. DOF will cover most things in this case.

The posint about SR is a good one. If switched on whilst on a tripod it could cause shake problems which would negate the validity of the test. One problem has been lack of consistency with the chart. It's absolutely got to be pinned down flat and in exactly the same place every time.

Try pinning the chart down flat and making sure it is parallell to the camera. Nothing should be moved between shots.

With respect, I'd urge you to look again at the shots you have posted as they are all askew. Different angles, magnifications, some twisted off axis, some not.

But if in the end you are unhappy then return the k10D for examination by Pentax whilst it's still under warranty. I would check with them what they would do if they disagreed and said the camera was OK. Would they charge?

The real question has remained unanswered - are your images sharp? That is, your real pictures. Because if they are the error is not significant except for the photography of test charts.