Just when I'd decided to sell some of my Ltd primes because of my minimal use of them, you make a post like this that makes me doubt that decision.

Thanks John.

I wish you lot wouldn't keep hanging up on me, I'm trying to make a living here.

Well done, you're a lot braver than I am.

Danny, the event I was going to cover alone was cancelled due to the weather and I was able to assist Richard at his event.

I think we're coming to your camera club tomorrow night so you'll have the opportunity of buying me as much beer as you like

In my case, the battery indicator was showing partially depleted at the time of the lockup.

It also occured to me that the camera will only decide which battery to use when the camera is turned on. It would seem that it doesn't switch to the second battery whilst the camera is actually in use.

I haven't totally condemned the 7dayshop batteries. Although I charged them all before use (I have 2 x Original + 2 x 7Dayshop), the 7Dayshop battery didn't last very long in the cold weather, only a couple of hundred shots at the most. Ordinarily, 200 shots would not be a problem.

For info: I was using both continuous Hi-Speed shutter and AF-C at the same time so the batteries were working quite hard. Coincidentally, I almost totally depleted a Pentax branded battery and the camera still worked fine. I did change it before any more problems occured.

I was shooting an equestrian event on Sunday and on four occasions my shutter jammed.

The camera would not turn off without removing the battery and the shutter was jammed with the mirror up. Having removed the battery and reinserting it the shutter/mirror then reset to their normal positions. After the second occurence of this problem, I left the battery in the body out completely as it was a bit of a pain, when you have a job to do, to remove the grip, then remove the body battery, then put it all back together again, especially with very cold fingers.

The cause (I think). . . was my use of cheap 7Dayshop, non-Pentax batteries.

Having removed the offending battery and replaced it with a Pentax branded one, the problem went away.

I've never had the issue before, but also I've never depended on these cheap batteries before either.

The problem was probably also not helped by my very rare use of 'machine gun' mode, required to ensure I got a good shot of some fast moving horses. I suspect that repeated shutter actuations may have drained the battery to a point that it couldn't return the mirror after a few shots.

Once I'd replaced the 'cheap' batteries with 'proper' Pentax ones, no problem. So for me, it's Pentax branded batteries only for important events from now on. The cheapies will still get used, but not when getting the shot really matters.

Apart from my macro primes, I rarely use my others (31/43/77), even the DA* 300mm gets very little use since acquiring the Sigma 150-500mm.

Zooms are just so much more convenient to use 99.999% of the time.

I just don't know if I could bring myself to sell the primes though, but if I had a good offer . . . who knows.

It now seems to have morphed into a 645 600mm lens

The K5 price is good right now.

Any new body announced this year will probably not be available until first qtr next year, and double (at least) the current K5 price.

My advice, upgrade now.

I think most of us will have upgraded from CS3 or CS4, rather than bought a new full version, which means we have to keep the upgraded version in order to re-install the upgrade at a later date.