As I hardly ever print beyond A4, I doubt that upgrading was ever really necessary for me. However, I did upgrade for several reasons, including improved camera features, as well as the enjoyment of GAS!

I started in 2011 with a K-R, which I still have, and since then I have gained a K-5IIs, a K-3 and a K-70. The latter is the only one that I bought close to its release, all the others being either used or end-of-line bargains.

I have no intention of buying either the K-P (far too expensive compared with K-3 and K-70) or the K-1 (too expensive, bulky, and heavy, and I don't think FF is of any benefit for me), so it looks like I might be having a few years off from upgrading......?

Cheers.
Philip

It looks great to me too, Nigel. Good work!

Cheers.
Philip

Hello Nigel.
Everything about the young lady looks wonderful in this photo - her expression and those big eyes, the light/shadow, skin tones, hair colour, and level of detail. However, sorry for adding a negative point, but I do find the odd texture in the background to be quite distracting.

Cheers.
Philip

Magnification is linear so, at 16x, the rear screen will show a sixteenth of the 7360x4912 pixel image in both length and width = 460x307 = 141220 pixels. The image LCD display has 345600 pixels so the image must be up-sampled, which explains why it looks softer at such high magnification. The 1:1 pixel view (aka 100%) is at a magnification of about 10.2x.

Cheers.
Philip

Wonderful shots, Nigel. Great expressions on the children's faces, and what a super fun cake! I don't know how accurate they are but on my screen the skin tones look very good - in your capable hands the equipment has worked well. And you are lucky to have such lovely photographic models!

All the best.
Philip

Pentaxian beat me to it - stitched composites can work very well, being effectively like having an extreme wide zoom lens just by adding more images. They can also work hand-held, e.g. by ensuring that the horizon is at the same position in the viewfinder for each shot.

If you don't have Photoshop or similar, Microsoft offer free stitching software - Image Composite Editor - ICE - which is easy to use and very effective.

This approach could be very cheap compared with a wide lens, and help you to travel light by taking a good compact prime standard lens - e.g. the plastic 35 and/or 50 should give great quality images.

Cheers.
Philip

The button that pops up the flash that it does not have, i.e. the GPS button.

Cheers.
Philip

It looks like the mint condition IIs at Clifton is still there:

https://www.cliftoncameras.co.uk/used-pentax-k5-iis-3277

but it is £399. Perhaps exchange something?

Cheers
Philip

If it is permitted to mention this here, this lens has the highest rating, of those zooms mentioned above, in the many user reviews and the in-depth review on the US Pentax forum web site.

Cheers.
Philip

The first one is preferable in my view - the composition is more balanced, the colour of the angel is more attractive, and the lines and angles of the structure give it a more dynamic effect.

Cheers.
Philip