I've owned an 18-250 in the past and found it better than my 18-55 mk1 in that range, it was a bit soft at the long end, although some of that was probably trying to shoot handheld without a fast enough shutter speed (I had a K10 at the time so max ISO was 1600). I kept it for a while after getting a Tamron 17-50 2.8, which was much sharper and used most of the time but I often found the range limiting, especially for candid shots of people. I've now got the 18-135 and am so far impressed its pretty sharp (but then I don't really need sharp corners for most of my shots so never really noticed if its that bad there, as some reviews state), I prefer the colour it produces to the Tamron and the range is much better for me. I'd definitely recommend the 18-135, as you can always use the DA40 if you need to go really sharp.

Also on the camera body front, I recently changed from a K30 to a K5, reasons being:

- Dedicated exposure and focus mode switches.
- locking mode dial
- Top LCD
- Quieter Shutter

TBH, I now miss the AF on the K30 and sometimes the live view, which is much better on the K30. Its subjective as I haven't any hard evidence but I find the AF on the K5 slower and less accurate. I would definitely consider a K-30 as they are relatively cheap now compared to the K-50.

I've been giving Topaz Denoise a try, prompted by the half price offer. With the limited testing I have done so far, I have been pretty impressed with Denoise, it does seem to remove more noise than LR and still retain good detail. I'd agree its slower and less convenient though so would only really use it for selected images. I'm still thinking it might be worth the £25ish it will cost though.

Lens now sold

Here are a few of my favorites taken with the lens, hopefully they also demonstrate the Bokah the lens produces.

Lens is now Sold

Its a common fault apparently, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiOj-7MAO_w, it was like this when I purchased the lens from this forum.

There are some pictures I took with the lens here:

https://www.pentaxuser.com/forum/topic/posing-with-new-cap---pentax-k30-40500

£155 in RMSD?

The lens comes boxed with original front and end caps and lens hood, there are a couple of scratches on the lens cap. The lens itself works fine and produces sharp images, it is missing the front bezel as it was removed to get at the screws behind. This does not affect the operation of the lens and has no impact on the images the lens produces. I have recently purchased a pentax 18-135 as I wanted the extra range and hence am selling this lens as it doesn't get used anymore.

Looking for £125 including RMSD

Thanks Derek,

I too have a K5 and use lightroom to process the RAW files, lightroom 5.3 has profiles for the lenses that I use on my K5 e.g. Pentax DA 18-135, Sigma 10-20 etc, but because the MX-1 has a built in lens I don't have a profile for it. Guess I'll have to install the bundled s/w to do corrections outside of the camera.

Does anyone know if its possible to do lens corrections for MX-1 images in Lightroom? I'm using version 5.3 and there does not appear to be a profile for the MX-1. I have been shooting in RAW and not correcting in camera, I guess I could try installing the bundled s/w with the camera but i'd prefer to stick to lightroom if there is a way of doing so.

Thanks Steve