Listen to lots of classical (esp Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart, Haydn, love violin and piano concertos) but also an eclectic if aging range of other stuff including Dr John, Taj Mahal, Abdullah Ibrahim, Dave Brubeck, Bob Dylan, James Taylor, Jackson Browne, Elvis Costello and Echo and the Bunnymen.

Next gig in a couple of weeks is one most people wouldn't own up to - John Lees' Barclay James Harvest at the Bloomsbury Theatre (to which most people who've sort of heard of them will add - "oh, isn't he dead?"....). There's no accounting for taste, but I'm happy with mine, even more so given that it irritates my 14 year old daughter no end! And having put up with what she likes, revenge is sweet....

£240 for the Smasung 35mm F2 as found by Greytop looks like a pretty good price from a very reliable dealer. If I didn't already have this lens anyway (Pentax version but I suspect that they are pretty much identical) I'd jump at that price.

Agree the 35mm FA is a great lens if you can find one at a price you can live with.

If you can find the 21mm for £250 buy it anyway - you could sell it secondhand for more than that! I think £350 plus is more like the going rate for that one, and it's heading to £500 in some places.

I have a 28mm SMC A and have been very happy with it - it's a nice focal length (almost perfect standard field of view on APS-C size sensor) but as a wide angle design originally, you get a bit more barrel distortion than you'd expect. I like the results from mine - nice and sharp and I've no problems with the colour and contrast - but the lens does tend to be one people either love or hate. Mine was only about £40 from local secondhand shop (Ivor Howell in S London) so can't complain for that money. I'd pay up to say £60-£70 for a good one, but not sure I'd go much higher than that.

I think you'll find 17-70 is a great versatile range. If cost is important, the Sigma one is also very good, has a slightly better macro function, and is cheaper. People who've used both suggest the Pentax has slightly nicer colour rendition, but the Sigma is a fine lens that will leave some change for another lens sometime....

You might be able to track down Sigma 10-20 and 17-70 secondhand for not much more than the cost of the Pentax 17-70 new......

Very happy with my copy of the old lens and wouldn't pay extra for constant f3.5 - I agree that I don't see it being particularly necessary for a landscape lens.

Not sure that the difference in IQ (as mentioned above, it's a mixed picture) is worth paying extra for either.

It's a fun place to visit but I would be careful with them - some of their lenses look as if they've been propping up bits of scaffolding on building sites! Sadly their website is terribly slow, inaccurate about stock, and not very informatve about condition. It's probably best to either go there or phone and talk to a real person before deciding whether to get out the plastic.

The new WR lenses are also very easily distinguishable because they have a (very smart) knurled rubber finish to the zoom and focus rings, as opposed to the ridged design of nearly all the other Pentax lenses.

As an all round lens that would be great for travel, you could do a lot worse than either the Pentax/Tamron 18-250 (and I note that there is a separate post from SRS Microsystems that says they have a few remaining new Pentax ones in stock for £299: it's a great deal at that price).

This lens performs at least as well if not better than the kit 18-55 at the focal lengths where they overlap, and although performance does drop towards the longer end, it always remains acceptable, at least in the centre at 250mm.

Downsides of the 18-250 are:

(1) it's not weather sealed (but I am not convinced that is such a major advantage. At least if you only have the camera with a one size fits all lens on it, all you need is a small bag to keep it in).

(2) vignetting at wide angles until you stop down (but how often do you shoot wide angle shots at f3.5?

(3) loss of edge sharpness at longer lengths (but the centre stays OK)

(4) zoom "creep" where the barrel extends when you are walking around, unless you use the built in lock (not that much of an issue when you get used to it, but would be nicer if it did not happen)

(5) slow maximum aperture esp at longer lengths means focusing can be a little slower, and you may need to up the ISO on occasion

If you are buying into the Pentax system, I can think of many worse ways of doing it than starting with the 18-250 and then supplementing with a few well chosen primes and high quality zooms once you've decided which of its weak points bug you most.

Good luck!

Jon

I really like SmugMug - lots of ways to tailor your site, a cheap way of storing large images (you can upload up to 12MB files with the standard membership, and if you pay extra you can upload any size including large RAW files) to much higher quality than Flickr. Great security controls, and the option of selling prints depending upon what type of membership you go for.

Jalbum is another possibility if you want to set up something that looks like your own website which is highly tailored - but I found SmugMug much easier.

And as you pointed out, perhaps rather better than its reputation too!