My guess is that it would cost a lot of money to develop and market a new pro system and that Pentax started their plans with cameras that would sell. That earns money and money can be reinvested.

So far we have had some very nice DSLRs and an ever increasing selection of very nice lenses. I think that's pretty good so far.

The next step may well be the 10MP body, and then if that is a success quite a lot will have been achieved.

Good points indeed. It's the photographer that counts.

Well the test would be, can you sell your images successfully into the market with the equipment you have. If you can, there isn't a problem...

Some interesting issues come out of this thread. Yes, if you want to make a A3 print at 300ppi then you have to have soft ware that invents some pixels. PS7 and especially CS2 do this rather well and the results can be very good indeed, with an A3 file being maybe a 45-50MB TIFF.

There are a good many 6.1MP DSLRs around, but I think fewer 8MP ones, and noise has been pretty universally cited as the downside of these extra pixels. Equally well, some reviewers have remarked that there is little and sometimes no improvement in "image quality" with the extra theoretical resolution. This may be for all sorts of reasons, probably beyond this thread for now.

I haven't yet seen anyone specifying a minimum requirement in terms of camera MP, only in terms of file size, resolution in ppi and image size. If these are all OK and the picture fits the bill aesthetically and technically then I don't see much of a problem.

Who is setting an 8MP minimum standard? There are only a few DSLRs that deliver this, and image noise is sometimes a problem. Normally I would expect the file size to be the determining factor, and of course we can very effectively adjust the file size of our 6.1MP Pentaxes (or Nikons, or Fujis...)

I routinely supply A3 sized pictures at 300dpi and they look fine, certainly more than good enough to go to print.

You could always buy a Samsung GX-1S.....

Whatever might be said about Microsoft, they have made an enormous contribution to the computers that we all love to use (or hate...) and without that unifying technology things like the web might not be so easy.

Almost anyone anywhere can sit down at any computer and use Windows and I think that's a pretty fantastic achievement.

It does read like that, doesn't it? Not intended as an insinuation, more a general comment, but I stand suitably chastened!

We were out all day yesterday with the *istDS cameras switched on virtually all the time, shot maybe a hundred pictures each, and at the end of the day the batteries were still giving a fully charged symbol on the camera. And these had been used the previous weekend. We don't have a problem with NiMH batteries.

Maybe some chargers are not effective as you say.

Otherwise, following the instructions seems to work! (Now there's a thought.... )

It's worth a mention perhaps that the sensor is usually covered anyway, by the shutter! (Or should it be called the "opener"?)

I know this is not hermetically sealed, otherwise every exposure would cause dreadful vacuum problems, but it is a cover and the risk of contamination is significantly reduced.

Of course, if you change lenses with the shutter held open on B, then none of the above applies!

My opinion is don't clean the sensor unless you really have to. Over one year on neither Sue or myself have any need to clean the sensors on our *istDS bodies.