I feel for you George,

are the pics present but corrupt, or missing entirely?

if they are present but don't open properly in Pentax Browser, have you tried opening them in SilkyPix (or whatever RAW converter you favour)?

I have seen PEFs before now whose preview JPG has become corrupt but the actual RAW data is still readable.

my brand loyalty is increasingly to SRS

I'm based just outside Swindon, Wiltshire. I'm quite often busy, but I rarely pass up an excuse to talk about cameras over a pint

but since it fits around the lens, surely it would just need shimming down to the size of the focus ring for whatever lens you fancied using it for?

It'd look a bit silly on an Auto110, but I see no reason it wouldn't work on a 35mm or DSLR.

not a bad idea though, good candidate for a re-shoot perhaps?

the 300 F4 is a stop-and-a-bit faster than the DA 55-300, which is F5.8 @ 300.

From what I've seen so far of the DA 55-300, I would expect performance to be similar between the two. My Tamron 300 F2.8 is better, but not by the kind of margin you might expect.

very sorry to hear that

I hope you'll be able to get your situation sorted out soon, best of luck!

just a question, if you like the *istDL, why sell the lenses and accessories as well as the body which you aren't getting on with? With the exception of things like the battery, all these will work just as well with your DL as with the K10D.

The K10D will fetch a tidy sum body only atm, or with the kit lens if you don't need it for the DL.

another vote for the Sigma 24-60 F2.8, my Dad has one and it's lovely, especially considering the price!

maybe Sigma 24-60 + Pentax 50-135?

seems to cover your range nicely and iirc should come in at about £700

last I heard they were still doing it and it's a very capable piece of software.

Silkypix is superb as mentioned above, and also has the advantage that a lot of very talented people on this board use it so there's plenty of help on hand. If the price is off putting, there's a free version with some of the advanced features disabled, you might find that this does what you need (it's still a lot better than the software that comes with the camera).

My weapon of choice is UFRAW and GIMP.Both are free, they are a little spartan but you get a lot of power for no money so are well worth a look.

RawTherapee also seems to work nicely, although I haven't really played with that one yet, and now that I think about it I can't remember if there's a windows version or not (I use Linux).

lastly, personally I think the software which comes with the camera gets a bad rap. It certainly isn't the worlds most advanced, but the user interface is simple and it's still a substantial step up in flexibility from in camera JPEG mode.


oh and really really lastly, there's nothing wrong with Pentax JPEGs. They are less processed than some of the competition, because the target audience is serious amateurs and pros who want maximum latitude for their own post processing. Personally I would argue that this makes them better than the competition, you pays your money and takes your choice.