I would be concerned that a description or categorisation of 'collectable' does a disservice to many of our great 'M' or 'K' series, or at least could be misleading to the uniformed. It may cause someone to overlook a very useful and cost effective solution on the assumption that it was more to be preserved or kept as an investment.

For Pentax specifically, would not the K mount itself provide the logical dividing point ? This is on the basis that any K mount (mid 70s) is ready to fit on to any current camera - the technicalities of how you meter with it or control the aperture are Pentax specific details and beyond any ebay classification I'd have thought.

Anything before the K-mount, requiring an adaptor, whilst 'compatable', is not 'current' in that it cannot fit directly to current cameras. These could reasonably be described as vintage don't you think?

Yes, thats not an excuse. So we're still not really getting any closer to understanding why we can't have flash sync at 250th?

So its not just those bloody-minded Pentax engineers then !

Sharp edges, sharp edges, ahhh ... I dream of those.

I'm not sure about the 'rudimentary' live view in earlier models, but from the K7 on (with firmware update) we've had a higher flexible and valuable focussing aid. I admit, I limit its use to tripod work at the wider focal lengths where the viewfinder proves too difficult to see details through (both because of the distances in a wide angle scene and also low light), but in these situations it is brilliant in giving you the confidence that you have your key elements, or approximate hyperfocal distance, completely sharp.

Using the INFO button you can 'zoom in' in jumps (say 4x, 8x, 16x), then you use the four-way controller buttons to move the view to your chosen focus point - you can now clearly see the focus changing as you turn the lens ring. Once set just cancel the magnification setting and you're ready to shoot.

Heres a link to my very own checklist for landscape on a tripod with the K7 / K5 cameras, including the setup settings needed for the live view focussing ...
link

With my 14mm, in low light, the viewfinder is useless for any focussing apart from on very near objects - and as many landscape photographers will be aiming somewhat into the scene anyway, Live View is the better option I have found. Yes, I agree, at f8 or f11 focussing precisely at very wide focal lengths is probably not necessary, but its nice to know you've got something very sharp in the right place before firing the shutter.

Focus Peaking will only add to the confidence with this - and probably be even more effective at longer focal lengths.

There's some great information being drawn out, but nothing yet that directly addresses my specific question - is there something inherent about the Pentax focal plane system specifically that would prevent 250th sec flash sync - I presume that the possibility exists generally as it is implemented on some 'non-Pentax' DSLRs.

So could it still be something for us to look forward to?

2nd your K7 thoughts there Will - part of the smile for me was the knowledge of the incredible value I was getting compared to the competition. It offered an amazing introduction into DSLR shooting with some very 'Pro-Spec' features. Only difference is I'm still loving it for now.

This is on topic by coincidence - I was looking today at a PDF copy of the Pentax magazine from 2006 that had an article introducing the K10.

I was surprised to see reference to '22 bit colour depth', which sounds very high for the time - but is this more of a characteristic of the CCD sensor. Certainly plenty of owners have praised the cameras colour reproduction.

Does anyone know how this '22 bit' figure relates to the 12 / 14 bit of our current models?

Thanks John, there are these limitations clearly. I was more specifically questioning if the full limitation had been reached on the current Pentax DSLR system for any reason, or whether we still have the possibility of matching other (non Pentax) DSLR types and achieving 250th?