I think we need to be honest and reflect that Pentax do not offer much kit that is geared towards the market that Calumet caters for. I don't think Calumet turned their nose up.

Pentax aim for a different niche, and do what they do very well. I doubt that they lose much sleep over the fact that Calumet don't stock them (why would they? To offer true professional service they'd have to stock a full range of kit that only a minority would buy - makes no economic sense). Getting more high street visibility in the likes of Park, Jessops and LCE etc is much more important.

In the trade and professional press, Calumet is a major presence. In the US I suspect their issue was taking over the likes of Ritz (like a run down version of Jessops) who aimed at a very different market. They are somewhat invisible at the amateur/enthusiast end of the market.

It's a real shame for the employees concerned. The London stores are very professional, and I know some of the staff moved into them after their own previous shops went bust over the past few years (eg Kingsley photographic which used to be a great shop on Tottenham Court Road). Let's hope they don't have to go through the same thing again over here.

I agree - already use an Eye Fi card in my dSLR and it's great when away from home. With the camera on my shoulder and tablet in my backpack, all my photos were automatically backed up and ready to post as soon as I took them on a recent trip abroad. One of those technologies you didn't realise you "need" until you've tried it. But I think it would be madness to plan new cameras in this age without built in wifi capability as a minimum.

I said we should all look forward to some great shots from that lens once you'd bought it!

Hoping to use this lens over the weekend given the forecast spring weather. During tonight's evening dogwalk I looked up and wondered what I'd get if I tried it for a moonshot.... This is 400mm/f6.3/ISO500 and quite a severe crop (not far off viewing at 100%). Taken in light-polluted London (4 miles from the centre of town), I think it came out quite well considering:




Cheers,

Jon

Hmmm, very difficult to answer as my lenses have been purchased with specific purposes in mind.

The one that currently lives on the camera unless there's a reason to use something else is the Tamron 17-50/2.8.

The second choice which was purchased for weather sealing and flexibility is the DA 18-135WR - it's used quite often.

After that, it really does come down to specific purposes as I have a range of primes mostly old some new, can't bear to part with a mint 35-105/3.5 SMCA and use a Tokina 80-400 ATXii when it's needed. I'm not sure what criteria I'd use to choose between them.

I think that if I didn't have an Anti Alien (cat) filter (aka cat flap), I'd have six. As it is I have three so the AA filter obviously cuts down the appearance of fur in my house

Made me smile....

link

The biggest upgrade for me was better autofocus (a larger difference than I expected), which would come with either the ii or the iiS. And I much prefer the black body compared to my previous silver K-5 (only purchased that as it happened to be the best one I could find secondhand at the time). I agree that images from the iiS do look sharper even without pixel peeping. But I also agree that sharpness is not the be all and end all. Result is I don't tend to use sharpening in post processing with the iiS (beyond LR defaults) whereas I would have done with the K-5. I therefore probably end up with images that are about as sharp as each other.....