Rubber is better as it absorbs. I know it has happened to me. Glad I had the rubber hood on and it was grass rather than concrete. But still, it helped.
The lens? fine!

Here you go, told you it was cheap. £6.99

http://www.jacobsdigital.co.uk/index.php?target=products&product_id=2924

I have the one Helios has shown. Its great, and cheap. Just go to Jacobs, they have plenty of them.

Its funny, but the latest Digital Camera magazine did the opposite. They did not understand the market that the K-7 is aimed at. They liked the build, but they said it was too complex and the results were not as good as the "rivals". (i think they did the tests in auto only :wink
The cameras they did the group test were:-

Canon 50D
Canon 550D
Nikon D90
Olympus E-30
Sony A-500

They even put the 550D ahead of the 50D.

They winner in their eyes was the D90 (surprise surprise)

hey ho each to their own.....

Exactly Daniel, time will produce better product, and of course prices will come down due to these advances. Its not just the fact that people could inspect items at high magnification, it is the fact that they could in the first place.
Any product that has been designed in the first place, will eventually come down to a level that most people could own one, be it a car, a television, a microwave oven, or an AL ED lens. They did'nt arrive overnight, but when they did first appear, the mere "ordinary" person did not, or could not obtain them in the first place.

Yes the AL ED was around, but not on consumer lenses. Now AL and ED is commonplace.

I stand corrected, however it was only Aspherical combined with Extra lower dispertion lenses that came to the fore, along with computerisation of said lenses that I should have said, rather than just saying aspherical

You're welcome mate

I think we have a confusion between a mount and Camera design here, as a Mount is just that, a mount. What you do with it is the difference.
Plus, lens design is also a factor, as is the market.

What we have to remember is that in the early years Digital was extremely expensive, and an unknown concept. So to tempt the early takers of Digital, which would have been Pro's, the easiest way would have been to keep the same mount for their lenses, rather than attempt to bring in a whole new system which could potentially bomb (remember APS SLR's? - you get the idea)
In the meantime Film was still selling strongly and great numbers of enthusiasts would have had a range of lenses that cost a not in inconsiderable amount to them (ie us!) To totally change systems would have been not viable. Yes I know Canon totally change their system in the eighties, but that was a gamble which might not have worked, but of course they were lucky!
This was not helped by the length these "old" mounts had been around. We all know about the K-mount, but you also had the Minolta Alpha mount which is from the seventies, and Nikons F-mount dates back to 1959!
So, taking this into account it would have been suicide for any of the makes not to adopt their current mounts (Olympus excepted, but I will get to that)
It was only until about 2002/03 that digital took off with the consumer, with the first sub £1000 DSLR's hitting the market and with it the bonus of using their existing lenses.
Now, of course at the time, a great number of "consumer" lenses were fine with film, but started to fall short - IQ wise - with digital, but even this only started when the pixel number went up to 10mp+
Olympus, of course saw this coming and knew that a great many lenses out there were not designed for digital, due to the way the light hit the lens, so bit the bullet, trashed the OM mount and created what we call 4/3rds. This at the time was a brave move, but a logical one, and by making it "open source" with the hope that other brands would join in (only Panasonic and Leica did though)
However, time is great when it comes to advancement, and other manufactures started to design and make lenses which, although could still be used with film, were optimised for digital. Things like aspherical lenses started to appear.
This, along with advances with sensors (not good for old lenses), is where we are at now.

Only recently have we seen a new range of mounts suddenly appear, but this is due to the new breed of mirrorless cameras. You can understand though why these new cameras don't use existing mounts, as can you imagine if Sony kept the Alpha mount for the NEX camera, some dopey so and so would put a full alpha mount lens (or attempt to) on the body, and damage the sensor. But the manufactures are canny, and will sell an adapter so you can use your legacy lenses (with limitations)

So there you go, my view on why we still have the mounts we have.

The good:-

SMC-K 55mm F1.8. Beautifully built, smooth and creamy bokeh, sharp, Tactile delight - £23
Takumar 135mm F2.5. Some don't like this lens, but I do. Fast, very light, well built, can produce CA, but not seen much of it in use. Great with the DS for discreetness. £40

The Bad(ish)
Osawa 200mm F4. Metal build, but odd third party lens, rarely used, but results were okay. Came with leather case - £25
Zenit 50mm F2.8 Russian fifty that came with the Zenit body. However it was given to free so can't complain. Have used it with tubes and gave okay results.

The Bad - none, been very lucky.

Mike, how long have you had your K20D and therefore the battery?

I only ask, as lithium-ion batteries do have a fairly limited lifespan. With laptops I have a great number of the batteries go after a mere 3 years (approx 80% of the 44 issued to staff - the other 20% never take them off mains!)
It will be the same with Camera batteries.
Even now, my K20D battery is not lasting as long as it used to.
Unfortunately that is the problem with Lithium-ion, and indeed NiMh batteries, they can only take so much use and re-charge. They are far better than Ni-Cads though.

I would suggest buying a new battery, but not necessarily a Pentax.
I have a Hehnal third party battery and still works perfectly with the body.

Hope this helps.