Price difference as it is here, I'd go for the Tamron

For a difference of £20, I'd go for the Pentax.

I'm very sorry to hear this Clarky, hope the insurance comes through quick so you can at least replace the things which can be.

Want me to turn the weather machine on them?

if that goes for less than the £350 I paid for my Tamron, I shall screem! on the other hand it is also more than twice the weight of my Tamron (which is quite heavy enough thankyou!)

unlikely, since it wouldn't work with DA lenses, and you'd be cropping it to 3:2 most of the time anyway so no real resolution boost over the K10D
always nice, but hardly killer considering how fast the K10 already is
again, nice, but not killer
depending on your subject and style, this is either a step in the right direction or totally irrelevant. More people will think the latter than the former.
meh


if my K10D broke, and assuming that the K20D did everything the K10D does plus the above, I would buy a K20D as it's replacement. I certainly would not even consider the possibility of upgrading for any of the features mentioned above.

I think what it would take is something like

an extra 3 stops on the SR
5 FPS with at least 20 frame RAW buffer
ISO 1600 with noise levels similar to the K10D at 400, ISO 6400 maximum.
Full K mount compatibility, that is to say, bring back the aperture ring actuator. I would settle for no metering screwups with the current system, and don't try to give me it can't be done, my *istDL2 can do it.

George is probably right, but if you do have a sentimental attachment to that particular K1000, or for some other reason want to get that one repaired then Asahiphoto who advertise at the top of this forum are supposed to be pretty good. They specialise in old Pentax cameras.

if you have a 2x teleconverter, the moon is bright enough that you could probably get away with 600 F11 with reasonable results.

I think I am increasingly impressed by the capabilities of the Tamron 300mm zooms. For the price they seem to be very sharp, you have a lot of crater detail there in the lower left hand corner.

300 is really a little short for the moon, so this is about as good as you could expect to get. Very nice.

we had a meeting today with a guy from a company which makes software for full on 3D modeling from photographs. We showed him the K10D and he was very impressed, especially by the viewfinder and built in SR. Then we told him it was dust sealed and now he plans to recommend them

Thanks for the interest guys, to be honest I didn't think anyone here would have tried it, but was worth asking.

My Dad is a Land Surveyor (I work for the same company as a Graduate Civil Engineer). He uses rectified photography (photogrametry was the wrong word to use really, my mistake) for elevations. A few frames on the camera and a few control points taken with a Theodilite (A Leica 700 series, but could easily be a Pentax R300 ) make light work of planning grade elevations. They aren't perfect, but are more than adequate for the requirements of most clients. When they aren't, it's time to deploy the laser scanner.

With a cheap point and shoot you can get passable resolution for rough elevations.

With an SLR and a high quality lens with known distortion characteristics, you can be really quite acurate. We have repeatedly demonstrated that a *istDL2 with a 28mm prime is far better than the optios, but up to now we've never been able to convince the boss that the outlay is worth it.

Now he has a job which can only be realistically done with a combination of the mighty laser scanner and some serious rectified photography.

Primes are ideal of course, but the versitility of a short zoom might swing things that way.

Does anyone have any experience of the Pentax 14mm prime?

Has anyone else tried photogrametry with the K10D?

My Dad's work has been using Optio WP's for basic photogrametry for a while, but are considering getting a real camera. He and I favour the K10D and we are quite likely to get our way, the weather sealing and value for money sell themselves. The question is what to get to go with it.

In an ideal world a 16-50 and 540FGZ would be at the top of the list. The flash is more than possible, but alas the 16-50 doesn't seem to be available at the moment at any price.

At the moment therefore the initial kit looks like a 16-45 and 540FGZ. Does anyone have any pearls of wisdom to impart in this field?