Well, the question is, will the Weather Resitant but shorter zoom actually increase your picture-taking potential?

I suspect not. Where you're going, rain usually means ongoing gloom, and if you're out walking you'll be concentrating on keeping moving anyway. Photo opponities in such conditions would be very limited I'd have thought.

Better to hope the weather holds and plan on using the longer zoom to hone in on isolated parts of the landscape - and you've still got the 18mm end for taking in the wider views.

I'm not sure that 'WR' really adds up to being able to shoot in dodgy weather - the lens front element is still the big problem, misting up or getting drops on it. That'll still give you hastle and make shooting in the rain problematic.

OK - here's the link to the pentaxforums thread. Member JimJohnson over there kindly patched the text together into a single pdf.

pentaxforums PDCU mini guide pdf .... link

When the forum page opens looks for the post by JimJohnson and there's a link to the pdf. Clicking on it will allow you to choose to open or 'save as' the file.

Its just the complete text of the guide without the various thread comments in between.

Hope you find it helpful, and please share you experiences with us and feel free to raise any questions

Just having a laugh! No sarcasm intended. The TC is always going to be a compromise, absolutely. Its a handy little item in the camera bag, versatile I guess. Now if I keep trying to get shots like this you just might have me convinced about the 55-300!

Thanks for your continued input and advice

Vic, I believe there's a PDF version of the complete guide (without the forum replies in between the different bits) on the pentaxforums website.

I'm just going to have a look and try and put a link on here - if not I'll send you a PM and I can send a pdf file directly.

Give me a little while and I'll post again ....

Latest reports I've seen on Dpreview indicate declines in all sectors of the camera market. 'Consumer' grade Compacts collapsing catastrophically, mid & high CSC types struggling to gain any foothold, higher end DSLR types holding up better (but with much lower numbers obviously).

The money would seem to be more there for high quality / larger sensor & niche products. Must be a very difficult time to be any camera company Exec or product designer.

Thanks David & Kenty. I suppose the B&W is OK I know the teleconverter has its negative effects - 2 stop light loss being one, but also some contrast and sharpness reduction.

Let me see now - what lens would be good - I used a 150 plus 2x TC - thats um ... 300, and I've got an 18 - 55. What would be the obvious choice do you think ?

Well ... this is just all so ... typical! All we ever get here is 'K5 K5 K5 K5'. It just won't stop will it?! And to cap it all that Rasta Alien thing keeps on appearing, again & again - you can't get rid of it, it just keeps coming back.

Well its time to fight back - for too long now this image has come to represent the height of high ISO performance perfection. The K7 needs to come into the race! I have been looking for something to put the K7 back in the fight.

Now I'm not really a portrait kind of guy - more gardens & flowers, that sort of thing. But I have found something that is the ideal combination - here it is - !! The K7 at ISO 3200 !!
















Ok - so its 'only' ISO 3200. I know its not as 'wow wee' as 12000100 or whatever. But the shutter speed for this shot was a blistering 3200/sec! (That is fast).

I wanted to keep it even, so I kept trying to dial in that higher ISO, kept on pulling the dial. But it wouldn't move past 3200 - couldn't figure it out. Must be an item in the menus somewhere, but I'd left the checklist at home. Anyway, I thought I'd try a computer simulation of the shot taken on a K7 at ISO 12500 ....







Now thats very impressive I think - anyone who thinks its unusable clearly needs glasses - nothing a little tweak with some NR wouldn't sort .....

Yes, in many respects - apart from high ISO & autofocus performance!

I've been aiming the debate onto the similarities, or indeed those features that remained exactly the same in the K5 & K5II. This is a reason that I feel K7 owners may be holding off from upgrading at this stage.

I feel that for many people the highly praised noise & AF performance of the latest models, that is so vocally highlighted to us with such regularity, whilst being an enticing plus, is not such a pressing need that it justifies the financial loss that an upgrade at present would involve.

And so many of the ergonomic, handling and control features are identical - things that owners of both K7s & K5s benefit from equally. K7 owners continue to get all these aspects without further expense.

It may take a new model, something more different again, which offers developments in these physical and operation areas, as well as 'performance' increases, to entice the K7 owners to sell up.

No doubt, but this misses my point


Misses the same point


Gets the point !

Thanks for the comments guys! You're right stub, the K7 is still a very versatile camera.

MrB, I'm sure your re-framing and rotating is very effective - there's so many angles you can come at around here. Trouble is actually getting a clear shot at the whole building.

Smeggy, no doubt a B & W would work, although maybe you'd need a higher contrast scene for the best effect. B & W doesn't do much for me though

The 1st wide view from the bridge was prepared with large-scale printed output in mind, and at 100 x 70cm on the wall it looks good. I don't tend to make any specific adjustments for the Web versions of my shots, so that may be why it appears 'sharpened'. The micro-contrast is cranked up pretty high on the buildings I admit, that may be the effect you mean. It all comes from a full-size RAW though,at 300ppi. Web reduction was done in PS Elements 'Save for Web' dialogue, final size 2800x1842 at 96ppi.