Yes it does. See Yves post above and my earlier post above that. Trust us, it does do a pre-flash.

Look directly at a mirror through the viewfinder with the flash popped up so that you can see your camera and flash. Take a picture. Do you see the flash in the viewfinder? Yes? That's the pre-flash.

See? Told you so.

I'm going to wait for the K-1 full frame body with dual card slots, WiFi & GPS built-in, together with all the other must-have goodies that'll be included at the time.

Then I'll buy a K3 to replace my K20D's. I might only have to wait about 5 years considering the development speed of DSLR's nowadays.

No Gary, the red-eye reduction flash is quite separate from, and in addition to, the P-TTL pre-flash.

That is highly unlikely unless there is a problem with it.

The onboard flash works in P-TTL mode with most, if not all, modern lenses. To check it, turn off the red-eye reduction option, pop-up the flash, take a photo paying particular attention to what you can see in the viewfinder before the mirror is raised prior to the exposure. The best way to do this is to look at a wall mirror through the viewfinder.

When you press the shutter you should see the pre-flash in the viewfinder before the camera's mirror is raised to make the exposure. You won't see the flash that is used for the exposure because the camera's mirror is up by then.

I don't have a K-7 but it's also possible that some exposure modes might remove the pre-flash so use Av mode for your test. Some older lenses of the original K and later M series might also cause the pre-flash to be turned off.

It's not possible to turn off this pre-flash on my K20D's, but it might be possible on a K-7. If it is, I'm not aware of it.

Pages 173 and 292 of the K-7 .PDF manual shows that P-TTL flash is only available with A series or newer lenses.

Surely the K-7 always would have fired a preflash, that's what the P in P-TTL means. Somewhere in your manual is a list of lenses compatible with P-TTL.

With some lenses fitted, the older K & M series I think, the pre-flash might not fire.

I doubt that there are any camera repairers in central London but Asahi Photo are probably your best bet.

If you just want to try HDR, download Picturenaut. It's freeware, free to download and use. Or try FDRTools .

Try it first with say 5 images, each 1 exposure stop apart from well underexposed to well overexposed. If you haven't already got 5 separately exposed images just create 5 images from your favourite raw converter, adjusting the exposure by 1 stop between saving them.

HDR takes patience, skill, and understanding. Nobody gets it right first time and most overdo the enhancements making the resulting image look surreal.

As in most things in life, practice makes perfect, or near enough.

So to sum up this thread, taking all the advice given into consideration, take all that you have already.

The truth is, if you want to cater for every image opportunity that might present itself you need many different lenses, and have the right one on the camera at the right time.

Now you have to ask yourself how you are prepared to compromise between image opportunities and weight.

If you are not bothered about cityscapes, landscapes etc. You won't need the 10-20mm. If the wildlife of Thailand doesn't interest you, you probably won't need anything as long as 300mm.

Personally, I wouldn't go all that way without my 12-24, 16-50, 60-250, 300, 100 macro. At a push, I'd leave my 300 behind, but not the others.

Have a great holiday.

Welcome to the forum.

I haven't had experience of the DA 35mm Macro lens, but I do feel qualified to answer.

1: Use manual focus to avoid the hunting. This will be a problem whichever macro lens you use if you intend to rely on auto focussing. I have 50mm, 100mm, and 180mm macro lenses, and they all hunt on AF at various times. I use manual focus 100% of the time.

2: You've answered your own question. You need to use a longer focal length lens. I don't think that there is any other answer to this one.

3: If the light is too low for the AF to work, the light is too low, full stop. You generally need a lot of light for maccro work so you might consider investing in a flash setup for macro. A ringflash is an ideal beginning. Both Pentax and Sigma make good units, the Sigma being cheaper. Alternatively a manual flash with a diffuser of some kind over the top of the lens and subject works well too.

Of course, extra light in the form of a flash system for the exposure is not going to help with focussing. For that, you need a torch. Simple as, really.

I think the premise is that raw files, .PEF and the like, are 'set in stone' and can't be modified. Or at least, the editing software claims to be 'non-destructive' of the original files.

That being the case, any 'changes' made to these files in editing software like Lightroom can't be saved with the raw file, but the changes need to be saved somewhere.

These changes are saved in a sidecar file.