For info, I was in Birmingham last Friday and Jacobs have a new K200D with kit lens in the window. From memory the price was about £380. May be worth giving them a call?

The K100DS is a great camera - one of the best 6MP SLRs you can buy, and picture quality up to A4 should be no problem. Great at higher ISOs too, and also fun to use with an infrared filter if you want to try something different (the Sony 6MP sensors used in cameras like the K100D are quite sensitve to infrared but IR photography much harder with the newer bodies).

I have a K-7 but for my trip this Summer I will probably take my K100DS with Tamron 18-250, supplemented by Sigma 10-20, because I want to take some kit that I'm (a) familiar with and (b) not too worried about.

Finally, if you're thinking of using it mainly for holidays and occasional other use, I'd recommend you use some CRV3 lithium batteries in it (look for them cheap on Ebay or Amazon). They cost a bit but seem to last forever. It's nice not to take a charger with you too.....

Well I adoped mine about 5 minutes before Huw at SRS on Friday! My thoughts so far:

(1) it was smaller than I expected - actually seems smaller even than my K100D because the body is slimmer even if the grip is chunkier. In my book, this is a good thing as what I wanted was K10/20 functionality but in a K100 sized body.

(2) I like the build quality, 100% VF, shutter quietness, faster AF (I think it is faster with SDM lenses too; my 50-135 was pedestrian on other bodes, but focuses well on the K-7), better tungsten AWB.

(3) surprises that I wasn't expecting were the better menu system (I think it's a big improvement not having to scroll through) and vastly improved live view. And I like being able to change ISO back to auto with a quick press of the green button.

(4) biggest frustration was length of time it took for the battery to charge! Shame they don't ship a faster charger as 6 hours is a long time...

(5) holding fire on commenting much about image quality. Compared to the K20D I think the natural mode (which I used to use) lacks oomph. I think a slightly toned down bright mode with contrast turned down a tad may be best compromise between pleasing out of camera JPEG and not overcooking everything. As far as noise is concerned, it seems to me that chroma noise is well controlled but luminescence noise is more noticeable than with the K20D (but with the advantage of a little more detail too). I suspect that results will be great when you work hard to get the exposure right in the camera, but that noise will punish you badly if you get it wrong.

(6) finally a suggestion - I've compromised with the wonky picture thing and decided to turn on the auto horizon correction, but turn off the tilt info in the VF and screens - so the camera will try and keep things level and I still get an proper exposure display. May help some others?

About to download latest ACR with K-7 RAW converter, and then I can look a bit harder at what I'm getting.

SRS sell some by Innov8 - so far so good with the one I've got.

Interesting to hear - I guess if the prices are close then the Pentax is definitely worth getting, but with the current increasing gap the Sigma looks like one of the better reasonably priced standard zooms to get for PK fit. Eduardo - I have the Sigma and like it very much - I'm sure you'll be happy too, but pleased that Simon has got a lens he's even happier with...means I'll have to make a future visit back to his website to see the use he'll put it to!

Curious to know what you are replacing it with? I thought you really liked this lens?

Editor is no longer Will Cheung - he now seems to be freelancing for many of the monthlies instead.

I thought this review was much more informative than the one (WC wrote) in Digital Camera mag and was generally very positive. Only issues were with metering (now tends to overexpose!) and IQ (judging by the samples they printed you can see a difference from the D300 and 50D it was up against). However, I can't imagine the test was of a production camera given they only appear to have just arrived in the country - I bet it was one of the earlier models perhaps with the firmware upgraded but the earlier sensor. So difficult to know whether the IQ results in particular are valid. And agree - if they used the kit lens then the ones they had on the Canon and Nikon were really of higher quality.

Crikey, I know the price is high but we might at least recognise that the SRS price is better than anyone else in the UK at the moment.... Price with kit lens is same as body only in other places.

Prefer the handling with a grip (esp for portrait shots) but don't enjoy the bulk. As major selling point of K-7 for me is its size, I don't intend to put a grip on it.

As it was a Tamron lens, which they have replaced with 18-270, it's no longer being manufactured. The consensus appears to be that the 18-250 provides better IQ, and the 18-270 is not available in Pentax mount in any case.

Now what I think Pentax should do is to resurrect a WR version of this lens to sell with the K-7!