If you think about it, this is more or less what we now call Hyper-Program. Amazing how yesterdays "well that's just how it works" turns into tomorrows "super duper new feature!!"

DOF preview is another example of the same thing. No DOF preview on an M42 camera, it just happens automatically.

exactly correct. Unfortunately because the K mount is larger than M42, it is impossible to build a K lens to M42 body adaptor which sits flush to the mount.

I wasn't quite clear which way around you were looking for, so I thought I'd better describe both.

M42 lens to K body is easy and common, there are always loads of them on ebay, you just have to watch out for a few of the cheap knock off ones which loose infinity focus.

K lens to M42 body can't be done without either using an optical adaptor which functions as a short teleconverter, or loosing infinity focus. I believe both of these have been manufactured at one time or another, but they are rare and not overly useful.

they are seriously pricey, I've been looking for one for my tamron kit for a while now and they just go up and up.

Two of my favourite lenses are Tamron adaptall (90mm SP macro and 300 F2., so eventually I will probably end up paying whatever it costs to get one but at the moment I just don't have the funds.

is that the K or KA version of the Tamron mount?

If it's KA I'll take it off your hands.

thats like saying Stephen Hawking is "quite a smart guy"

read the FAQs, they stopped at 60ppm because they couldn't move the paper any faster

the 16-45 is already quite a bit wider than the wide angle setting on the Panasonic.

Personally, I would go for the 18-55 kit lens now and see what happens with the 17-70. The 18-55 is a very good starter lens and will keep you going until the 17-70 arrives. You may even decide that the 18-55 is good enough, and that you can afford to spend your pennies somewhere else. If you enjoy really wide angle then the Sigma 10-20 is well worth a look.


As for whether or not it is time for you to buy a DSLR, you listed all the best reasons for going from a bridge camera to a DSLR, so it looks like a yes.

the advantage is simple. To change the colour temperature in Pentax lab all you have to do is grab a slider and pull. Perhaps it's just because I don't have full photoshop, but I've never seen white ballance adjustment in a photo editor that comes even close to being as easy as doing it in a RAW converter.

For slight adjustments it's no biggie, but you try changing a shot from tungsten ballance to daylight in JPG.

TBH I don't really see the point in shooting JPG.

Even just Pentax Lab gives so much more in the way of options than JPG. Also, you're learning, theres a lot of stuff to learn about apertures, shutter speeds, lighting etc etc. You don't want to be adding unnecessarily to the things you have to think about in the field.

Shoot JPG and you need to be right first time, changing white ballance/tone etc later is difficult

Shoot RAW and you can ignore all that digital nonsense while you're in the field and just concentrate on getting the exposure and the composition right. White ballance and tone settings can be dealt with at your lesure when you get home.

Whichever you choose, there really is no good reason to shoot less than 10MP maximum quality. To quote the signature of a great photographer on another forum
"memory is cheap but memories are priceless"