Showed this to one of my "pet" galleries and they think so too, so maybe it'll be a better year than last for me, hoping so, glass is going to be more than half full this year, I'm sure of it!

Hi Jim, thanks for the comment,
Without a doubt there are some good opportunities out there at the moment there always are but you have to be there when something happens which the last six times I've been out it hasn't, and thats armed with local knowledge and the far better mountain weather forecast, to give me the best chances. To be honest, all it has done is rain biblically and try to blow the tripod over! Him upstairs wants a media blackout!

Thanks for that!
Shot was taken around 1 P.M. By which time the sun is already dipping behind the hills casting some long shadows and it's getting pretty warm, at least the light is! I shoot on "Natural" so to keep a good dynamic range but the colours are quite muted, I tried to bring them back to what they were at the time. Other half reckons that it's about right and she, is of course right about absolutely everything! I used a soft grad to hold the sky back so I could get the sunlight hitting the reeds without losing the glow above the Pikes, just got back into using grads much to the other halfs disgust as she can't see why it takes me soo loong to take a picture in the first place. "You reckon you have the best Camera out there! Why do you need to put more things on the front of it then?" To be fair on her, I had watched a big rift in the clouds approaching from behind for about fifteen minutes, I hoped it would cross the sun and do something to liven things up, which it did.

Weather has been so bad up here in the lake's for just about the whole of December, Photo opportunities have been few and far between, I've taken my Camera out there with me on at least six occasions this month and have taken one shot! Half the County seems to be underwater at the moment, the rest is covered in downed trees, got to have been one of the wettest ever?
From Elterwater looking over to the Langdale Pikes between downpours...

Just got some batteries for my K3 from UK Battery (China!) and they must have strapped them to a snail to deliver them too but they did arrive and though they were stated as 2000 MAH, on arrival I notice they are rated at 2800 MAH! Time will tell!
You never know the original has been out a good while and tech moves on...

The Pentax 1.4X teleconverter is to be released in march 2014 and should be compatible with screw drive and SDM lenses.

No Link
Take it as you like...

Went out this morning to Grasmere and spent the entire morning being pelted by garden pea sized hailstones!
My reward for finishing the stairs

To be honest, it's hard to say really, lock on may be even more sure than before but I cannot catch a break with the weather to be able to test it at all, the rain has been biblical in Cumbria, Since, well since I got my K3 actually! I seem to be spending my time testing the weather sealing!
More Parny on the way tomorrow and half the county on flood alert, looks like I'll be spending my fiftieth indoors fixing our Harry Potter Staircase (It moves!) instead of being out taking pictures, forecast for really unpleasant heavy rain, heavy enough to keep a Pentax user out of the Lakes anyway, not the light drizzle which usually keeps the Canon users home.

I'll first to comment on the post firmware upgrade, placebo effect:
My K3 has transformed into an Imperial Deathstar!

Well the power of market economics wins again, sigh...
They have a review up for the Nikon DF already...

I quite like the DPR reviews though for some of the minority players like Ricoh Pentax, they can sometimes miss the point of a camera entirely, the bias of the author often comes shining thru but I don't mind that to a degree as I prefer my reviews written by people who actually might use the gear...

If we gave too much credence to reviews and reviewers we'd all be using Fuji X camera's and muttering about purity and artisitic vision...

Whats my motivation here???