That's JPS. I forgot to mention that being a PU Plus member will enable you to download a form from this site to get 20% discount on Pentax servicing.

People try to do the best they can and any line of communication is progress. We can at least be sure that things are being read and that gives an opportunity for ideas and feedback to be picked up.

The choice is to take it as an opportunity or not.

Interesting, the trouble may come yet as parts inside the lens rust. Water damage needs very urgent attention to have a chance of success. It's possible that the weather resistant nature of the lens may have helped though.

JPS are the offocial Pentax repair house, so I would contact them ASAP. The contact details are on the UK Pentax website.

Welcome to Pentax User, sorry to hear about your disaster.

Cameras/Lenses and water do not mix very well and it may already be too late for your lens. The only thing worse than the river would have been salt water...

If you can make an insurance claim then that is the way to go.

Thinking about this, is it worth the risk of getting herconfused and fed up by introducing M series lenses that have to be used manually?

She needs to find photography fun first and enjoy taking some photographs. I would expend the energies on taking her interesting places and helping her get to use the camera and kit lens first.

When the spark is strong is the time to introduce complications, when the spark is new it needs nurturing.

My iPhone says it will be sunny Saturday, but raining Sunday. My iPhone is sometimes right, but often wrong.

199 steps up. A piece of cake for fit Pentax Users!

Following on from Smeggpants's comments, it just goes to show that it's important to understand the design ethos of a lens. Unfortunately manufacturers rarely come clean about it, so we have to find out all by ourselves.

Clearly the Sigma 30mm f1.4 favours central sharpness and makes an ideal lens for situations such as outlined. Someone else might just think of it as a poor design and post accordingly. They will be looking perhaps for edge-to-edge performance. This probably leads to much of our swapping about of what we use - we buy the wrong lenses because their characteristics are not fully explained.

Likewise, for example, the SMC Pentax 24mm f2.8 lens is not the best at f2.8 but it is excellent at f8. If we always shoot at small apertures then it's an excellent lens. There might be better ones if we want startling f2.8 performance.

The 70s soft focus effects are epitomised by David Hamilton's photography, achieved by using a rubbish 50mm lens that was no doubt worth its weight in gold to him. He had a flare for that sort of image making.

The main purpose of these seemingly catch-all situations, as I understand it, is to enable the use of the images on the web in all countries and in anything to do with the competition itself.

Looking at it the other way round, I have had situations where I've been glad I had a proper model release, which too had been worded pretty widely to cover all possible uses.

Keeping copyright is the essential bit IMHO. I agree though we need to scrutinise very carefully what we are agreeing to.

All digital images arte slightly soft before some sharpening is applied. Viewing at 100% is quite a large size, so perhaps you expect something that you won't get. The image as shown on screen certainly looks sharp enough, although as Ken says it's hard to deduce much from that.

Do you images when viewed at normal distances look sharp? If so, don't worry.