Hi Strognofe, and welcome. You mentioned lens build quality as possibly leading to substandard images. I believe this alone would be an unreliable guide to the potential of any particular lens - build quality certainly relates directly to how robust or resistant to the elements a lens might be, so those ones marketed at professionals would generally have this higher build quality (which often also gives a 'good feel' as well).

Of course, those marketed at pros will also often have better internal components, better glass and elements and maybe wider apertures - so better quality all round - you get what you pay for!

If you're looking for quality lenses then you've made a good choice with Pentax. Even some of our humble 'kit' offerings have 'good build quality', weather resistance and (compared to similar prices items from competitors) rather good image quality. And there is a great range of high grade independent makes available also, not to mention the full range of secondhand K, M, FA, F, A etc etc older Pentax system items.

Another great visit to this gem of a garden near Wimbledon Village. Always manages to reward photographically.

Latest shots here were taken a couple of weeks ago, all on the K7 with Samyang 14mm f2.8. Av mode, most taken at f6.7 - f.8.0.

As always, all cruel & constructive criticism will be well received!

Any space saving from removing items such as built-in flash (or shutter button :wink would have little appeal to me - I rather like a larger camera, in fact I use my K7 permanently with the BG4 grip for this reason. This grip can almost act as a tripod replacement at times (along with the SR).

No, I don't think its about removing items - from what I've read I believe FF shooting to be more unforgiving and challenging, so us mere 'enthusiasts' may need all the help we can get. I bought into Pentax exactly because it offers many more 'Pro' level features at a reasonable price.

I am just highlighting a relationship between features on offer and the targeted users - I am saying that on other brands the lack of built-in flash signifies the top line pro models. The question is would Pentax follow this distinction as well and target the pro base who would normaly use flashguns and wireless / studio setups, as a market positioning statement.

I would suggest the inclusion or not on a new FF / 35mm sensor body may be an indicator as to the market positioning as seen by Pentax, and potential user base. As the lines between 'Pro' and 'Prosumer' models becomes more blurred this remains a clear distinction on other brands.

On Pentax our top of line models already have many 'Pro-Spec' features (the levers and switches I mentioned earlier) where other brands cameras of similar pricing would use electronic menus. With the additional space inside required for the bigger sensor, could it not be attractive to Pentax to remove the built-in flash in the interests of compactness? Only, I would say, if they believed the potential user base will be the type of photographer who would either have already, or be happy to invest in a flashgun / off camera setup, or who might have studio equipment.

Or could be they be expecting that it will be the same group of serious enthusiasts / semi pros / the odd pro etc who will be tempted?

Not having a pop-up flash on a DSLR is traditionally one indicator that the body is a 'pro' model. But the makers did not think that the high iso performance would render flash unnessary, they figured that the pro user base would have their own flash guns, which are clearly much more versatile. But for these people, and still in many situations for all types of users, flash is a great 'get out of jail' card. Even our humble pop up can be very effective.

What is interesting in other brands is to see cameras with FF / 35mm sized sensors and other pro specs continue to be made with pop up flashes. Our own K7 / K5 ranges have many 'pro-spec' features, in particular the range of on body levers and switches to directly control many essential camera functions that other brands place onto electronic menus. Yet they still have a pop-up flash.

It seems the traditional distinctions between consumer / enthusiast cameras and the pro models is becoming less and less distinct. It will be a very important judgment for Pentax in deciding if they could dispense with the pop up in a new FF / 35mm body.

It is certainly an appropriate subject for that effect. Does the camera applied effect come under the 'filters' submenu? If so, I wonder if you have any extra tweaking controls available, or if these can be set independently under the 'Custom Image Parameters'? I'm thinking specifically midtone contrast and more saturation for the red?

If were able to take this sort of finer control on the camera then that would add greatly to the usefulness of the in-camera feature. I am working on the assumption that this is good for situations when someone does not want to / have enough time for / or needs to produce a final output straight away.

I'm not so sure that RAW shooting should be portrayed as a 'get out clause' in regards perfect exposures. As I said earlier here, I would accept that RAW gives us much greater latitude over the midtone than before (compared to what was available to the slide shooters of old), and so for low contrast scenes then we could be a bit casual with it.

The big advantage I see, exposure-wise, would be the additional control at the extremes, where there is a high DR, so we can pull up shadows or reduce highlights and retain better quality looking textures and tones in those 'reclaimed' areas.

In these high DR situations, fine exposure control can be critical (if only making use of a single frame) because you will have to judge where the priorities are for your processing 'reclaiming' to come, and adjust the mid tone exposure to suit.

I should add, for my definition, a 'high dynamic range scene' would normally include almost any outdoor 'scene' in most weathers.

So I am trying to accept this idea that the K7, a very new design and hailed in 2009 as a leap forwards, actually represented a step backwards in colour quality terms over the earlier models ?

My own experiences with the newer camera as far as colour goes couldn't be more positive. I find that I have amazing control over exact toning when using a combination of the white balance and fine colour control tabs in PDCU 4. The depth of colour control I find is extensive - but then again I am using the 12bit RAW files from the camera, containing the full and complete amount of image data the camera is capable of recording.

Are we actually comparing like for like ? Are people who claim they got 'better colours' on earlier models actually referring to their camera-processed JPEGs? If so are we not therefore really just comparing the abilities of a 2 different in-camera image processors, and / or the photographers ability to operate the respective controls that would influence this processed output?

I have heard these favorable comparisons to the earlier models quite a lot on this forum - I can't comment because I'm fairly new to Pentax (K7 is my first DSLR).

But what I would like to find out is what is it that is actually producing these 'better colours'. If you are telling us that you see better colours on JPEGs shot on your K10D then are you not just seeing the results of good 'in-camera' RAW conversion and processing?

If we can assume that the sensor in the newer K7 / K30 models should be an advance and development, could it be that it is actually the in-camera processing algorithms that are to blame?

As soon as you get your new K.... 16bit 24mp beast, I'm going to be looking at those blacks in your shots with eagle eyes.