If you find one at a good price (generally split from a kit) then it's a very decent purchase. It spends more time on my camera than any other lens, because it covers a decent range and, regardless of what Klaus wrote, produces pretty appealing looking images. If you're happy to stop it down a little and don't mind post processing to deal with vignetting (both of which are features of most superzooms in any case), you get a very nicely-made WR lens which is a flexible addition to a WR body.

Yes - Apple sell a card reader that plugs into the iPad.

Check out Adaptall-2.org for some quite helpful info on Tamron lenses. The gold standard is the 180/2.5 SP but they cost a small fortune. The 24mm/2.5 wide angle is quite good, and I was impressed by a 200/3.5 (cheap and at least the equal of the Pentax 200/4 SMCM). The 90mm macro lenses have a good reputation for a reason, and the 500mm mirror lens can produce great results in the right conditions if you put the effort Adapters are expensive if you want to control the aperture from the e-dial, but cheap for the simple manual version if you don't mind using the aperture ring and a slightly longer process to achieve a correct exposure (you wouldn't buy one of these lenses if speed was an issue in any case....).

To be honest, the easiest route into old glass may be some of the Pentax SMC-M lenses - the 135/3.5 is easily available for less than fifty quid, 50mm/1.7s for less than that. The 28/3.5 is a nice lens, as is the 35/2.8 if your budget can't stretch to the f2 version. You might also consider the 50/4 SMCM macro, and the 50/1.4 is great. SMCA versions give the advantage of being able to move off manual mode too, but come at a price - and in some cases (not all) with slightly lower build quality. As Dave Holmes recommended above, the USA based Pentax forum site has a great review section.

Yes - the shutter got a lot quieter with the K-7 - the K-10D and K-20D were quite a lot quieter than predecessor K100s though! Try one of those, and then you'll be happy....

I'd highly recommend the Vivitar 55/2.8 manual focus macro, which doesn't come up terribly often but sells for less tan £100 when it does. Unusually, it's a true 1:1 lens, nicely made and great IQ. Can't remember whether it was made by Kiron or Komine - but it was one of those two.

If I didn't already have one, I'd buy at this price. Yes it's a compromise but a pretty decent one and I think the images are rather better than the reviews. And a WR lens covering this range make a lot of sense with WR bodies unless you're heading to DA* territory.

Agree - that's why I use SmugMug...you can upload raw images with them.

Don't knock the Tamron mirror - it can produce excellent results with patience, as it sounds like you've discovered. I used it for my first shot in the Pentax Photo Gallery:




Still got mine, and looking forward to making time to try it out on the K-5 over the coming weeks.

Cheers,

Jon

Ver nice, and good to see in colour too...so many people would have converted this to black and white, but it looks great as it is.

Very moody shots. Like the last one a lot but my recent experience with multi aspect sensors in m43 land makes me wonder how it would look in a more panoramic (16:9) format. I think it would work really well.