So does the omission of a 'smiley' mean my attempt at humour was lost? The Royle Family was a comedy programme.

You may have thought it was obvious. I didn't. It seemed very much to me that you were defending the marque, not making a comment about the new owner.
My point exactly. Pentax have had 10 years to produce long'ish zooms. They haven't as yet. If Sigma can take advantage of a healthy market in 300+mm zooms, why can't Pentax?

The only real reason I can think of is that Pentax had little or no intention of producing a full frame body. 300mm on APS-C is after all equivalent to around 450mm, mid way between the 400mm & 500mm primes they used to make, and sell. The longest pro-quality zoom of the modern era that Pentax offers is the DA*60-250mm (90-375mm FF equivalent) but it's only f4, yet for film they made the 135-600mm MF lens. I can't believe that it would be beyond their engineering expertise to reproduce that lens or similar in a modern AF body.

Maybe Ricoh's ownership of the brand will change things.

I have no pictures relating to Dr Who, but I do remember the first episode. Shame I can't remember what I did yesterday.

Since Tamron make (or once made) Pentax lenses for Pentax (DA 18-250mm and FA 80-200mm, possibly others), there is possibly some trade agreement between the two companies that prevents Tamron from releasing Pentax fit lenses.

@ JR, how can you blindly defend the indefensible? Your brand bias is showing. "Early days"? in the words of Jim Royle (Ricky Tomlinson), "My ar$e".

Pentax/Hoya/Ricoh have been producing Pentax badged DSLR cameras for 10 years now. How long do they think they need?

In their previous pre-digital life, their long A*, F*, and FA* zoom lenses were legendary, and still are.

During their digital life it's taken them 9 - 10 years to give us a new lens over 300mm, and that's a prime. The fact that I can't afford one is another matter

Like many others, I am now totally reliant on Sigma for long zoom lenses.

For me, the lighting of #1 & #3 is too harsh, with too much dark shadow on her face. #2 I like, much softer with fewer dark shadow areas.

The DA12-24mm is now £910, that's more expensive than the DA* 200mm and almost as expensive as the DA*300mm.

Any new battery will need to be charged, discharged, and recharged a few times before it'll reach it's maximum capacity.

I guess well have to wait for cameras equipped with grafene sensors producing umpteen terrapixel images before this moire 'problem' will go away.

Is this your own evaluation or is there an article somewhere discussing this 'issue' with this particular image?

Don't be ridiculous. That's what I would call nit picking to the n'th degree.

Get real,just as you look at a fly, you can't see the multi-faceted detail in its eye, you would only see this minuscule aberration through a magnifying glass.