I noticed that the K5ii & 18-135 recently went from £909 to £999. I think when the £85 cashback started it was still £909 for a bit. At effectively £824 for the two I thought it was getting tempting, not anymore

My home will certainly be at risk if I buy anymore lenses at current prices

Pentax 55-300 arrived safely yesterday thanks Bob, seems a lot sharper expecially wide open tham my sigma 70-300 was.

I'm getting increasing frustrated by increases in pentax lens prices, when I bought my first DSLR, a K100D, a few years back, pentax lenses seemed to be better than their canikon counterparts at similar prices. Also they didn't require IS so they should always be a similarly priced or cheaper. Also the cheaper pentax bodies were less crippled, one of the primary reasons for my choice was that the K100D had exposure bracketing. Now a few years on I own a K30, K-01, Tamron 17-50, FA 50.14, XS 40 2.8 and a sigma 10-20. It seems that to get any better in the lense department I need to spend many hundreds the DA* are all well over £500, the new HD limiteds are all hiked to over £500. I'm thinking I'd love to pickup a cheaper K5ii(s) at some point but then I'm looking at where I could go with Lenses for it and its nowhere (without a lottery win). Also when I'm looking a the K5 (even K3) bodies theres less of an advantage as there is with the cheaper bodies, the nikon D7100 looks a similar match and more competively priced with more lens options that are rapidly looking cheaper than their pentax counterparts despite needing to have IS.

Any way, pointless rant over because I can't really afford to buy any of the stuff I'm looking at

Me too

According to the description on SRS it has OS, its £309 in Canikon mounts as well

Thats what I thought, it was over £500 not so long ago, still is at some places

The DA* 16-50 does not have OS, it doesn't need it as its in the pentax camera bodies. Not sure if the OS in the sigma lens is any more effective but apparently it is a drain on the battery life (which can be a bit short on my K-30)

I've only noticed recently that the price of the Sigma 17-50mm f/2.8 EX DC OS HSM seems to have dropped off a cliff to £309 at SRS. I was always under the impression this lens was comparable to the DA* 16-50 2.8 minus the WR. I was eventually looking to get the DA* but its still beyond my reach. I currently have a Tamron 17-50 2.8 which I like but fancy quieter (faster?) AF and I seem to remember some reviews where the sigma was rated sharper and better image quality than the tamron. Does anyone use this lens, what are your impressions of the image quality / AF?

I've recently been looking for a laptop like this, I settled for a Dell 15R SE with 1080p Matte screen. It was on the Dell outlet and was £430 inc VAT, with an i5 (M full power processor) and 8gb of RAM, 1 Tb HD. Seems a good deal to me but it hasn't arrived yet will have to let you know about how good the screen is. I've been using a 720p screen on a Dell XPS with the glossy type (trulife) screen and I would not recommend that for photo editing, is way too low resolution, with lightroom of photoshop and the editing panes there barely any room left for the photo. Also the glossy screen reflects very badly (trulife is supposed to have some anti reflective coating), I often resorted to switching all the room lights off at night and wearing black to have chance of seeing the photo rather than the room and my tee shirt The 15R I ordered has backlit keys so at least if it reflects and I have to resort to darkened rooms I'll be able to see the keyboard shortcuts

I couldn't agree more, I bought one from amazon with the 40mm XS lens at £299. With that lens its almost pocketable, but I use a belt pouch. I find I take it to many places I wouldn't have bothered taking the K-30. It very quiet as Gary pointed out and very discrete with the 40mm lens on. It would never replace my K-30 but it compliments it well. It also means I can carry both if need be, the K-01/40 XS easily fit in the K-30 bag, and then the K-30 can have a long or wide lens, and I can grab the K-01 if I need a more standard focal length. I does have its flaws like Gary says the screen is difficult to see in bright sunlight (not often a problem in the northwest!) but I find its usable with an autofocus lens, would not like to try manual / focus peaking in bright light though. Auto focus is slow but if I know I need fast AF I'd have to use the K-30. Its not that slow if your comparing it with a P&S though and at current prices its comparable with a decent P&S.

Probably true, and the more I use the K-01 the more that disappoints me. I could definitely see me upgrading if they did update the K-01 at some point, although only if its in line with the current pricing.