Hi Rob. Sorry to hear about your problem. I got a free 50/1.8 when I got my 20-40 Limited from SRS, and it's a great lens. The throw is much greater than the other plastic fantastic 35/2.4 and the focusing ring is tighter, but it focuses snappily and reliably on both my K-3II and K-5 and like the 35 is sharp as a tack. If you've tried two copies and are getting the same results then hopefully it's not the K-3II - but then it's OK with other lenses... Odd.

I agree with Steve that moving to RAW would give you the greatest flexibility. As far as monitor calibration goes: if you use Windows 7 then there's a tool for monitor calibration in the Control Panel. Just google 'monitor calibration windows 7' for detailed instructions.

Shooting the same static subject, the PEF was 29.6MB, the DNG 30.2MB, so the latest PEF is indeed slightly smaller. What's also interesting is that up to the K-5, the Microsoft add-on Windows RAW codec pack happily displayed thumbnails in picture folders, but with the new PEF in the K-3II, it doesn't do that any more. Using the Adobe codec, the DNG does display as a thumbnail as it always has, but it's slow. It's not a real issue since I use Faststone (which displays both) instead of Windows Explorer to view the contents of folders.

Thanks, John, sounds very plausible.

No, never actually got that far! Yesterday, I formatted both cards in my K-3II and after that with RAW set to PEF, card 1 showed 600 shots remaining, and then after changing to DNG, it showed 599. Maybe I'll do a comparison today.

Great pictures! I was there a couple of weekends ago but didn't manage to take any as the camera, having been out in the cold, didn't de-fog in time before the family wanted to move on!

Tomay-to, tomah-to. I have no rationale for using PEFs other than I'm just comfortable with them as they have served me well since 2004 and my *istDS. DCU5 opens those RAWs perfectly well and will I suspect continue to do so into the future, along with those that I take now. If I want to make a DNG to, say, process with Camera Raw, then I can either convert it using the free Adobe converter, or convert it direct in DCU5.

So we are offered a choice of which format to use at source, which is great. Why is having the choice of both PEF and DNG formats available after the fact more restrictive than just having DNG?

PEF user here. There doesn't appear to be a downside with obsolescence since there's a free DNG coder from Adobe that will convert PEF to DNG if your need to.

I use Maxsimas in the K-3II and K-5. We also use generic 109s in the X-90 bridge with no problems.

Just magnificent.