Yep, makes sense. I do some printing (but not really large) and like to have the leeway for some cropping if the framing isn't quite what I want. My wife's old Canon D30 is 8mp and I find that a touch on the low side. 12-16mp seems just fine. Then again, an 8mp image with greater detail might look just as good(?)

So do I. The K-5 needs a lot of improvements in that area. It took until software V1.03 to get any real performance and evne then there's a lot of room for improvement[/quote]Too true. There is a bit of an imbalance in the technology there at the moment. The K-5 has fantastic low-light performance in terms of IQ, but the AF system can't keep up.

I haven't used one but from what I've read the Canon 5D mkIII proves that excellent low-light AF performance is possible. Whether it's feasible to put such a system in camera which retails for around half the price or not is a different matter, since I have no idea how much it would cost to implement.

Don't get me wrong, if I thought these extra megapixels would be of any use to me I'd be punching the air and whooping. 24mp is underwhelming news in the sense that for what I do, all these extra pixels are more likely to be a hindrance than a help. Even if the low noise performance is unaffected, it still means more card and hard drive memory required, longer download and processing times, and camera performance which, regardless how good it is, could have been even better if they'd stuck with less megapixels.

It seems like the need to sell a feature but I'm not sure who they're selling to to, exactly. Of the 'serious' photographers I talk to few seem to have much use for such high megapixel counts. Sure you can crop to your heart's content, but once the novelty of that wears off, who will really do it that much? I don't think anybody's about to start using 50mm lenses to photograph wildlife, thinking "I'll just crop that tiny animal in the distance out of the frame later".

A couple of months ago I thought there's no way I'd ever afford whatever replaced the K-5 but since then I've had the opportunity for a lot of overtime at work and that has rather changed the picture.

However I'm still holding out for better AF performance in low light, beyond the improvement in the K-30. 24mp is expected but underwhelming - I don't need more megapixels than I already have. Plus if those extra pixels come at the price of high ISO performance of a lower standard than the K-5 I'm not interested. Low-light, high ISO photography is one of my primary areas of interest.

If the AF improvement doesn't transpire I might skip this generation and wait for the next one. That does leave me with a bit of a dilemma though, because I do want a second body sooner rather than later. The K-30 would be ideal if it did 14-bit RAW, which I have become rather accustomed to, but it's not a deal breaker I suppose. A second K-5 is not out of the question either, but I am intrigued to see if the K-30's improved AF can increase my 'hit rate' for low-light handheld shots.

Kinda what I meant. The only thing it could affect is the view through the viewfinder, and it is so small and right on the very edge of the mirror so I doubt it will affect even that.

Nice idea, but the Canon and Nikon users would just say "Feh! Shame they don't have any decent lenses!"

About 25 years ago my dad had a Ford Escort, until it was involved in a head-on collision with a Volvo. The Escort crumpled up like a tin can squashed underfoot, utterly destroyed. The Volvo had a dented bumper.

Unless you actually see something unpleasant in the viewfinder as a result of it (which I really strongly doubt) this tiny mark will not affect anything.

The Tamron 17-50 practically personifies value for money in lens form. I love the formula they opted for with this - 100% image quality, 0% bells and whistles.

I really do not give a hoot whether I'm following the crowd or expressing my individuality. I don't have a money tree in my garden therefore my choices will be based mostly on value for money. Whether these choices are following the crowd or bucking the trend.

I have two Samsung laptops, a Samsung phone and a Samsung compact camera. Samsung therefore far outnumber any other brand of consumer electronics I own. This is hardly bucking the trend or being a rebel - Samsung are the largest consumer electronics brand in the world just now. They just happen to still offer great value for money in most of their products. If they occupy the top slot for too long I'm sure they'll abandon that strategy in the fullness of time, just as Sony did before them. Fortunately they don't attempt to tie you into any proprietary formats so it really doesn't matter to me. When the time comes I'll just buy another brand.

My car is a Suzuki Ignis. Bucking the trend? Sure, but that's hardly the point. The point is nobody has heard of the bloody things and as a result they can be picked up second hand for peanuts, representing a bargain for me. Also they share most of the essential components with the far more popular Suzuki Swift, making them just as cheap to maintain. Good car, too, if you don't need anything bigger or faster.

I have a Sony PlayStation 3. I bought it just after the massive price drop at the beginning of 2010. My DVD player had just died. It has a Blu-ray player built in. The X-Box doesn't. Two birds, one stone.

I wear an Accurist watch. I got it second hand. I have absolutely no idea where it lies on the scale of trendy, and I could care less. I think it's a nice watch which I picked up for a nice price.

I buy most of my clothes in Asda. I can't tell the difference between these and stuff ten times the price, and I don't lose any sleep worrying whether other people can.

I have a Pentax K-5. When I tell people in my camera club I believe it was the best in its price range at the time I bought it (arguably still is, given how much the price has reduced) they look at me like I'm crazy. (It's not a Canon or a Nikon! It can't be the best at anything! We know this in our very bones to be objective fact!) When I ask the exact same people what made them choose their brand, 9 times out of 10 the answer is the same - they went with what the salesman recommended. And they think I'm crazy because I went out and researched the thing independently instead of listening to the advice of someone who almost certainly had a vested interest in shifting a particular product. There's no doubt in my mind who the crazy ones are.