The interesting bit will be learning from experience in what circumstances to switch it on. There's been a lot of discussion of moire, (and a few tears over it as well :wink, but it still seems a bit of an unknown and unpredictable quantity.

Sorry, you're losing me there - what have any of these 'net acronyms' got to do with the Isle of Wight?

Difficult to know how a photographer would approach it. In some ways its a bit like the 'shoot RAW or Jpeg or both' option - which you can choose any or all if you want to hedge the bets. But it would be clear to most people in what situations they might choose either option (factors like DR, difficult colour balance or the need for a quick jpeg but wanting to work on the RAW in future).

Now there's the 'moire reduction or not' option - maybe in future there will be the option to shoot both at once - 'one push moire reduction bracketing!' But at present I thnk the decision to use it or not wll be more difficult, or at least uniformed without shooting test images of every scene.

I was just saying that there's a clear road-map for 'Crop' lenses, but the options for any future bigger sensor models are less clear. Of course, there are loads of suitable lenses to put onto a FF camera, but they're a 'mish-mash' of legacy 35mm glass, a small number of current premium primes if I'm right, and again a mish-mash of independant offerings, like my Samyang 14mm.

Planning for it is no easy task. I decided not to buy any new DA crop lenses as I'd like to think about FF one day, but apart from the Samyang (which on FF will be super wide & super high res) none of my old lenses will be up to the task on FF I fear.

Thanks guys for that information. I'm glad I asked the question, yes, the .avi's are less compressed and also less processor intensive, something that I read was sold as a plus on the K7 originally. And it's great to have an audio level monitor - thanks for the link smeggy.

But apart from the smaller files of the h.264 format, what are the other advantages? Is there a reason that Pentax would move to this if it's going to lead to potential overheating earlier?

Its not just about the cameras either - you need to re-consider your whole lens line-up. For us Pentax people its no small thing to have to offload a collection of DA lenses, for .... what exactly? Its a bit of a mish mash of options and independants isn't it? There's not really a clear 'road-map' of FF glass to follow.

Many of the old 70's & 80's lenses a lot of us love to use may not stand up to the intense scrutiny under the glare of higher resolution shone onto them by a much bigger sensor.

Its clear enough - Depth of Field is shallower on the Isle of Wight unless you go FF!

So we have to make a wishlish for a 'Siver Efex Pro Pentax CCD filter Pack'

If I just restrict it to the dynamic range issue (yes there are other problems with the shot as well as has been pointed out), then ND grads are an option worth exploring. Personally I don't think this particular scene is ideal for them, as the 'hotspots' are all around and surrounded by much darker areas, making the effective placement of a glass filter when actually shooting rather difficult i'd have thought.

I absolutely do not want to re-ignite any 'HDR vs Filter' debates - its just about a particular image and what may be possible - but as you've shown some good use of HDR before, I'm surprised you didn't shoot a few frames with very different exposures and try it out in Photomatix or something. I think with careful treatment you could create a well balanced HDR output that reflects the full dynamic range of the scene.

This new camera does not change the core of the 'FF' vs 'Crop' debate, and it will not stop those photographers who feel they need 'FF' now from going and getting it (and paying highly for it of course) - indeed as we've just been seeing it may tip some over the edge away from pentax very quickly.

But we can focus on what the camera itself is about and what it offers all those other photographers content with 'Crop' for now - the majority in fact. I agree with those who have said it will sit at the top of the APS-C performance pile and that reviews and commentators are likely to favour it.

For Ricoh / Pentax that in itself is an achievement. It moves things forward and shows the seriousness of intentions at the higher end and gives that extra long-term security that we have all needed. A bigger DSLR sensor will surely come, and when it does the way will have been well prepared.