PM sent re fisheye...

Indeed. But that's the way it has to be (and the way the original "out of camera" JPG had to be produced internally).

When I used Provia and Velvia slide film they had to go through a comparable analogue process to get onto paper

https://www.lcegroup.co.uk/Used/Pentax-Z-1-+-28-80mm-and-AF-330-Flash_149483.html

£39.99

You are mistaken

The Pentax dSLRs will briefly show you the embedded JPG, and then you may see the screen 'blip' and you'll then be seeing the RAW data.

Adobe Lightroom works the same. The very first time you import an image you'll see a glimpse of the embedded JPG, and then it's switched to the RAW image from then on.

That mechanism is for ease-of-use (rather than having to wait to see that you've selected the wrong image!).

Matt

Have used Mint - it's a nice distro. Great for old XP laptops! (Though some older laptops can only run 32-bit versions, and not always the latest version)
There's a choice of window managers. Cinnamon is a good place to start.

Have fun!

There are times when you can stuff the rules.
These are great

IMHO, 2 and 8 the people are a touch too close to the bottom. But love the massive sense of space with these!

Think 4, 5, 6 are my favs.

Matt

You are not comparing like with like

10mm of fisheye is 180 degrees of vision.
10mm of rectinlinear (on the Sigma) is significantly less.. 102.4 degrees.

You get a LOT more with a fisheye... but distortion with it. Even at 17mm it's probably as wide as the Sigma at 10mm.

They are utterly different lenses! FWIW, the Defish Hemi app looks very promising - I nearly bought the Samsung 10-17mm here, but chickened out and someone else pipped me to it https://imadio.com

Super wide angle lenses are also very challenging - compositionally. I have the Pentax 12-24 and it's superb for landscapes

Hope that helps!
Matt

Just spotted this on SRS: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Used-Pentax-A-70-210mm-f4-lens-1-YEAR-GTEE-/1918472541...

£49.

I've had one for a little while, and it's an excellent lens if you can manually focus - lovely 8-aperture blade booked, and super sharp even at 210mm.

If you only have the one battery it's definitely worth trying another.

My son has a battery that appears to charge, shows charged, but fails as soon as you try and do anything.

Matt

I have found the DA17-70 an excellent lens, especially for walkabout.
When trawling through my shots, many of my favourites were taken with this. I upgraded to a DA*16-50 - which recently had the SDM and clutch go wrong. JPSS did a splendid job on the 16-50 and it's now utterly lovely.

However, while the 16-50 was on its way wrong, I snagged a 17-70 again from SRS as a P/X. Now I'm in a good position to compare (and my son has my old DA16-45 which is still going after many, many years!).

The SDM on the 17-70 is excellent. The "issue" with focus is largely down to the ultra light focus weight which causes some issues with the K5, K7 and earlier. The K5ii/iis and K3 have updated focus mechanisms that now handle it well. The simple solution (and it's particularly at the 50-70mm end in low light) is to dampen the focus ring by gently resting a finger on it as the camera focusses - it stops the 'overshoot' and hunt

Optically I find this lens lovely. The 7 blade aperture gives a really smooth bokeh and rendering - much less nervous than the DA16-45, and it has a really decent close focus point (compared to the DA*16-50 which can't do anything like close!). It's sharp even wide open, balances well (my son is after it as it feels more weighty than the 16-45), and has the excellent Pentax colour and contrast.

If you're shooting at f/8 there won't be much in it, TBH, except that you'll have the 50-70mm end. A good copy at less than £200 is definitely worth consideration in my view!

Is the DA*16-50 worth the extra? For me, yes. My copy was a bit "hmmm", but was serviced and calibrated by JPSS (and now SDM fixed hopefully for good) and it's tack-sharp, heavy, bright, and a beautiful piece of glass.

With all of the lenses, I'd recommend shooting RAW and enabling Lightroom's lens profile option - it cleans up 99% of any CA, adjusts any distortions and vignetting.

Hope that helps!
Matt