24 isn't as wide as it was in the film days, but it is as wide as my last compact camera (Panasonic DMC-FZ7, 36mm-equivalent at the wide end). Depending on what your photography interests are, the extra 20mm at the long end might be more useful to you (particularly for portraits) than the extra width.

However, if you are primarily a landscape shooter you might want to consider alternatives: the Tamron 17-50 f2.8 (though it doesn't have HSM or quickshift) or the new Sigma 17-50 f2.8 HSM (though it isn't out yet). The latter is about the same price as the 24-70, and sacrifices some of the long end for extra wideness. The Sigma 17-50 also has their in-lens OS system (even in Pentax fit): I don't know whether there are any reviews comparing the performance of this to the SR built into Pentax bodies.

I have had family members jump slightly at the noise of the DFA 100 - but then they let me off because they love the resulting shots (on the rare occasions my limited talent matches up to the lens's capabilities )

It is a very good shot indeed - aside from its great artistic merits it also seems to just ooze sharpness.

First of all I apologise for linking to the website of a Murdoch tabloid! Anyway, a chap called Austin Thomas won a French wildlife photography award for a very nice shot of some horses on a beach. The real reason I'm posting it here though is this quote from near the end of the article:

He should have bought a Pentax

Assuming that CodeWarrior is analogous (sp?) to the Xbox's XNA Developer Studio, I'd say that your chances of being able to write a game to run on the same hardware as authorised games are approximately zero

My main point about marketing was more to contrast smartphones (essentially PDAs with a phone app) - and in particular the software-centric marketing of the iPhone - to appliance devices such as 'dumb' mobile phones, games consoles, dvd players etc.

One of the unicorn lenses much like the supposed DA* 28mm f2

1. Game consoles are not general-purpose computers, as Apple markets the iPhone

2. Game consoles are not designed to run third-party software (of course criticisms can be made of that). The iPhone on the other hand is (see Point 1).

3. There is a difference in the two markets. All games consoles work to the same standard - the Xbox 360 is no more or less restrictive than the Playstation 3 for example. Apple, however, is the only manufacturer of smartphones to dictate which software their owners run on them - phones running Symbian, Windows Mobile, Android and Blackberry OS will accept whatever compatible software the user installs.

4. The Google comparison is disingenuous, since the iPhone will only run apps from Apple's App Store. Thus the user is forbidden to install software which Apple has not approved for its App Store. With Android, on the other hand, if software is excluded from the Google App Store (or any of the handset maker App Stores) then the user can download it directly from the developer's website

I like 1 and 4 (although 1 slightly more - gorgeous shot). The background hills are too blue in both 2 and 3, and the foreground hills are slightly purple-tinged in 3.

I have to stop coming on here (or at least coming on the photo-posting sections): NOT good for LBA by any means!

In both the shots from an angle (ie 1 and 2), the right tower looks noticeably taller than the left one, though in reality (judging from face-on 3 and 4) this isn't the case. This is obviously perspective distortion rather than lens distortion, but it perhaps illustrates the limitations of software correction.

#1 is my favourite. The lack of background blur isn't an issue. In fact I like it: the ship really adds context (however irrelevant, given the differing ages of it and the gun) and character to the shot.