The K-7 is back from th repairer (Pentax) and is working fine. I have yet to chance the firmware upgrade.....

Serial number is 561979. I also have the original black tooled leather ever ready case.

1.03 is doing all I need, so I may wait a bit for more testimonials.

What about the Hotmatic? This model had a built in hand warmer for use in Arctic weather conditions. The battery was supplied in a wheelbarrow!

More likely that those who do have problems will not admit it for fear of being told 'told you so, should have bought a C***n' from friends. Some friends!

I know from a friend who works for a large retail outlet that there are a fair number of faulty cameras produced, most seem to be from the larger producers. perhaps volume production leads to more failures simply by numbers made. The percentages may be no worse than for the smaller manufacturer, who knows.

it is very dissapointing when it is me who gets the 'Friday Afternoon' camera.

Thanks for that suggestion, but no I had checked this first. There is something wrong because I heard from the repairer (Pentax) that they had ordered new parts. The camera has been away now for five weeks. very depressing.

Here is a photo of my Pentax SV and 55mm 1.8 Super Takumar lens. All still in good working order.

Regarding reliability, have I just been unlucky?

My K-7 is seven months old and has been back to Pentax twice. First time was because the Sensor was out of level with the viewfinder, now corrected - service report said recalibrated, but no fault found. I am waiting for it to come back (should be Wednesday) as this time the red focus point indicators failed. Focus worked, but no indication of which point it was using. This is a shame and unusual too, my K10D and K20D have given no trouble at all and the build quality is superior to C***n in my opinion.

Has anyone else had any troubles?

If the angle of view were the same for the 10Mp and the 20Mp cameras, then the 20Mp camera would resolve more detail. Take this to the extreme and think of a camera with only 1Mp with the same field of view and the detail resolution would be awful.

What I think this is saying is simply that with more pixels you can print the same image for the same viewpoint bigger on the paper if you print both at the same pixel density, ie 300ppi. Obviously an 18Mp image printed at 300ppi would be bigger on the paper than that of a 10Mp image.

This means you can crop a large pixel image more than you can a smaller one.

But the images shown rate the 5D Mk2 as smaller than the 7D, which is odd as one is 21Mp and the other 18Mp.

I am still confused.