I couldn't disagree more. Messing around with AA and AAA batteries compared to a single Lithium battery pack is operationally no contest IMHO.

In that context, the GR really should be supplied with a battery charger.

To be fair, the 18-55mm will be at or near open aperture at f/5.6, hardly the best to show off any lens. Stop down to f/11 or f/16 and it's a brilliant lens.

You could do with posting pictures of these items in this thread to avoid confusion.

I can see the detail and texture here on my monitor, no problem. It may well depend on the type of screen the images are being viewed upon.

Wonderful images, thanks for the link Matt.

Screw thread Super and SMC Takumar lenses: Focus wide open, then stop down on the lens and the camera will give the right shutter speed in Av. Use the genuine Pentax Adapter K. Enable Using Aperture Ring to "permitted".

K and M series: Be aware the metered exposure will drift off with aperture, so meter carefully and learn how much deviation from the measured result is needed. Enable Using Aperture Ring to "permitted".

A series and later: Just use the lens, no problem, set any aperture ring to the "A" setting.

The magenta band is usually an issue with some RAW converters.

Looking at the EXIF, spot metering is quite possibly one culprit, but adding +1 EV exposure compensation certainly wouldn't help either. Add the variable exposure results you may get with early lenses (see the instruction manual) and there are a number of operator errors.

An A series lens or later will give better results much more easily.

When a card is reused it should be formatted in the camera. This will indeed prevent problems. Although we might "get away with" not doing so, it is possible that precious images could be lost.

I have never heard the suggestion that SD cards could be defragmented, that seems very dubious to be honest. The file structure of a PC hard drive is very different to an SD card in a Pentax camera.

Is this the same card? If so, have you tried formatting it in the camera when you delete all the images?