One part of me is happy that Pentax is now owned by a company which wants to expand the camera business rather than price-gouge it out of existence. The other part of me, which is for now the larger part, is concerned that Pentax is now owned by a company which thought that the Ricoh GXR was a good idea.

I love my Pentax system, and this deal might be just what Pentax needs. On the other hand, I'm now not sure whether to postpone the FA77 I had planned to buy soon

To put it simply, if Ricoh do for Pentax what Sony did for Minolta then I'll be happy (more lenses, cheaper FF body than Canikon, retaining full compatibility with existing lineup). I just can't shake the anxiety that the fools who came up with the GXR now own my beloved Pentax.

Aren't Pentax the same? Pentax UK is (as far as I'm aware) just a PR office/importer.: they don't even do their own repairs (outsourced to Johnsons Photopia)

EDIT: Just realised you were primarily talking about marketing. That'll teach me to write forum posts at this hour

ANOTHER EDIT: From the open letter:
That suggests, to me at least, that the marketing setup might be retained as-is, at least for those products, like SLRs (and security cameras?) which Pentax make and Ricoh do not.

If Photozone's tests are to be believed (I know some here, and particularly on the Other Forum, distrust PZ since the 18-135 review ), the f3.5 version is inferior in sharpness/resolution to the older version. For what it's worth, I have the older (f4-5.6) version and love it.

Based on the wedding I photographed (also a registry office's large room), 50mm probably won't be nearly wide enough. Something at least as wide as 28mm would be necessary. In fact, depending on how far you're likely to be from the ceremony (I was a few feet away, nothing more) a Tamron 17-50 might even be a better option.

An important question is what camera model you have. If it's anything earlier than a K5, then I would strongly recommend prioritising f2.8 (so for example getting the Tamron 17-50 or the Sigma 18-50 rather than a 28-70 f4) - with my K20D I only just got away with the kit lens (the only sub-50mm lens I had at the time) and that was because it was a very sunny day outside.

I don't want to inject unnecessary alarm, but was this for friends/family or for an 'outside' client? (not that it makes a difference, but it might affect how understanding they are.) If the worst happens and you can't recover the images, do you have professional indemnity insurance?

The jpg preview is (IIRC) a very small thumbnail image, and not useful for much more than its original purpose (i.e. as the 'icon' for the RAW file in photo album software)

My K20D came with a plastic cover for the flash hotshoe, for when it's not in use. Does anyone know of an equivalent for the 'plug' part of a flashgun (ie the part which slots into the hotshoe)?

Since I don't own any of the three, I was just going by Klaus's comments in the Photozone review of the FA77.

Of course, I'm still thinking of getting an FA77. When I was thinking of switching last year, I worked out that (aside from really loving my Pentax kit, which was the main reason), switching was going to cost me more than an FA77 would. Lovely how LBA logic works!

The 16-50 does have a bad reputation for decentering problems. In fact this has been suggested as a possible reason why the 16-50 (at least a year or two ago) seemed to have more SDM problems than other DA* lenses (ie the decentering putting more stress on the motor).

Hey, it works for Pentax! The 77 Limited is more than twice the price of competing manufacturers' equally good f1.8 medium tele primes.

After the recent price reductions (in the UK anyway) the 35mm Limited is now cheaper than the 40, is slightly wider, and has macro capability. Plus for sheer fun, I can heartily recommend the 35: aside from its general usefulness as an all-round lens ("from 2 inches to infinity"), the petiteness and the lovely pull-out lens hood make it a joy to use.

Very nice, but unfortunately also very gone