Personally I would recommend the Pentax cameras that have a pentaprism, rather than the cheaper penta-mirror.
So that's *ist-D, *ist-DS, K10D, K20D (if I haven't missed any!)
LCE Group have some e.g. K10D £280
...and you could always phone Chris at SRS Microsystems - I'm sure he gets second hand ones too

Matt

Update: The embedded JPG is full sized, but low quality - taking around 1Mb of space (for a K20D).

Extra note - that embedded JPG is very useful for tying in the colours of the camera's RAW converter to the PC one. When you use RAW+ (in the K10D/K20D) then the separate JPG is saved with the specified quality. But the embedded still has the camera's RAW processing applied - colour, sharpness, etc.

Matt

The prices of the K20D will only plummet so far. Second hand K10D go for around £275 - £300. Compared to that, the price of a new K7 will drop rapidly over the coming months.

So, from a long-term point of view, I would see it something like this:
K20D now for £500, sell for £300 in 6 months. (loss of £200)
K7D now for £1200(?), available for £700 in 6 months. (£500 cheaper)

So, if you bought a K20D and traded up in 6 months then you're still £300 up That'll get you most of a DA* lens


Seriously consider the cost of the glass For example, the DA*50-135 is utterly sublime. Yes, the K7 will probably be better in some respects - but I'm not sure by just how much
The Pentax digital glass though is well worth shelling out for (e.g. DA*50-135, DA17-70, DA12-24, FA50/1.4 etc).


Your other option is to consider the slower and older cameras like the *ist-D and *ist-Ds. You can pick them up for around £200 with a kit lens. I still have the *ist-D that I paid around £1100 for With good glass it can still take seriously good images (and I mean seriously good ) Very tiny size, still packed with features, and very configurable. The *ist-D & *ist-Ds are TTL flash compatible too, and work very well with manual focus lenses. That way you'll get to try all your old LX glass.

Let us know your location - maybe there's a Pentax User who could let you try the various dSLRs

I'm not knocking the K7, but I'm just pointing out that one of the older bodies may cover 80% of your photographic needs for not much outlay

Matt

Most of the compatibility issues can be resolved with the VueScan software Some older scanners used SCSI for connection (and you may have trouble getting Vista drivers for an old SCSI card). But apart from that, with Vuescan you should get better control and better compatibility
www.hamrick.com

Matt

Malcolm,
The RAW format is not just a binary dump of the sensor data. There is a huge amount of EXIF data, plus the embedded JPG.

Check out http://thomer.com/howtos/embedded_jpg.html
and http://www.rawworkflow.com/rawworkflowcom-download-page/

Can't remember off-hand what size or quality the PEF embedded JPG is - but it's in there

If you want to really find out how the PEF format works, then check out the DCraw source code (from Dave Coffin) - it's fairly well laid out, but you have to pick through all the other RAW formats too.
Matt

I've had a Minolta Dimage Scan Dual II and a Nikon Coolscan IV.
Both very good - especially if you use Ed Hamrick's "VueScan" software. The software makes all the difference - especially for batch scanning slides

Matt

I would strongly recommend against that
Have you ever touched a flashgun capacitor before?? It's not funny at all

Take up the 2year EU consumer law
Matt

Wiziwyg (and equivalent) are better than nothing They should get you at least in the "ballpark" and not massively out. But there will be a huge difference between Wiziwyg and hardware devices.
Probably the cheapest device is a Pantone Huey. (Personally I'd use it with the ArygllCMS system - which is superb, but requires command line work!). Colour Monkey has a broader market, IIRC, such as profiling printers and grabbing colour references from physical items (like fabric & walls).

Matt

Do you mean "it took a long time to transfer the files to the PC", or do you mean "it took a long time to produce JPG images"?

i) Copying 2Gb takes a while - and this will be the same time whether it's 2Gb of JPG or 2Gb of PEF or 2Gb of DNG. I use the Sandisk Extreme III card reader - fastest card reader I have.

ii) Converting RAW into JPG/TIFF does take a while. You have more flexibility, and more options for noise reduction & sharpening. Some RAW converters are achingly slow, others are faster. Lightroom and Capture One provide background processing - so you can be working on the next shot(s) while the previous one is being processed. Other converters work in a batch mode (like Silkypix). I would reckon around 30 seconds per image for a K20D RAW file (even on a fast machine).

Do be aware that there is an embedded JPG image inside each RAW file. That can be extracted using a stand-alone tool.


If JPG suits your needs, then yes, without a doubt it will always be faster.
If you want to eek the greatest amount of detail (both sharpness and tone) then RAW is definitely the way to go.

I would say - consider using RAW if you have reached a "ceiling" in your image processing and expectations. RAW heightens the bar but at the cost of data storage and time If you are not feeling limited by JPG - then continue using it!!

HTH!
Matt

To correct the title of the thread - it hasn't "reset", it has "wrapped round"!
(Much like a car odometer would do)
Matt