On June 14th, I got a mail from Pentax France, saying that firmware update 1.3 for the K10D would soon be available.
Does anyone have infos on what kind of news this update may include ?

Hello Benjikan,
I just wanted to express my total admiration about your photos. Usually, I'm not very sensitive to "fashion pictures" (I take landscape and "textures" pictures), but yours are definitiely the most beautiful I've ever seen ! They're really pieces of art, so I've only one word to say : Bravo !

Thank you very much, Hazza. You do help me because the manual doesn't say a word about this change of focusing screen.

: Does anyone know how to change the focusing screen on my K10D or my istDS ? Can I do it myself (is it complicated ?) or do I have to send the camera to Pentax ?
Thanks for your help.

Being a little on the mad side regarding photographic gear, I've owned SLR of many brands, such as Nikon D70 or Canon 300D, 350D, 20D, which I still use with their very good 60 mm F2.8 macro lens, and I can tell you that photos right out of the Nikon, or even more Canon do need a lot more postprocessing than the istDS or K10D to get a sharp picture! Especially Canon is reknowed to give very soft pictures right out of the camera.

I've had the K10D for two weeks now and use it with the SIGMA 17-70 mm F2.8-4.5 macro zoom lens. For the moment I have shot mostly JPEG images and I can say that the pictures I get are really sharp, with an enormous amount of detail, and that they definitely dont need any postprocessing.
Don't forget that most of the reviewers judge the quality of a camera (and the lens which is attached to it) on a screen, which can be very mistaking. When I say that I get very sharp pictures, I'm talking of the PRINTS I get with good photo paper and a good printer.
Don't forget also that many of these same reviewers tend to give a bad opinion of any camera that is not Canon or Nikon.

This "Sv" mode that is Mattmatic's favorite is the one that I don't understand. What is the difference between this mode and when, on any other DSLR, you just set the ISO and then choose the traditional program mode ?

Hi everybody, and happy new year to you all,
I just wanted to say that I got my K10D 2 weeks ago ( I already had a ist DS which I just love) and put a Sigma 17-70 mm F2,8-4,5 macro zoom on it.
The results are simply wonderful !! I usually use Photoshop CS2 to try to get the best I can of my photos, but here, I wouldn 't even have to. The jpeg files are just beautiful right out of the camera. One has to see the amount of detail and the rigthness of the colours on landscape photos !
Beside that, the sharpening is just what it should be, and it gives the pictures a very natural film-like look (though without the grain).
As for the camera itself, neither Canon nor Nikon can beat it, especially in its price range ! It has got everything a photographer might want and even more, like for example the very interesting TaV mode which I'll use for macro pîctures to get a high enough shutter speed with sufficient depth of field. Also, the fit and finish are beautiful, there is a button for each action and these are so well planned and placed that you don't even have to read the manual before using the camera.
Well, I could go on like this for pages, but I'll stop here and just say that Pentax really deserves a huge first prize for getting out such a camera at such a price. It's just too bad that so many photo jounalists are simply too prejudiced to recognize that it sends Canon and Nikon right down on the boxing ring for the count !!

Matt,

Effectively, after having seen your picture on ephotozine, I can now understand why you shoot raw pictures! Wow ! When I say that I get great results with jpeg, it's nowhere approaching even by far the quality of yours.
So I think I'll exercise with jpeg for another 30 years (hope I can make it because I'm already 55), and then switch to raw when I master photography like you do.
With all my most sincere congratulations.

Thank you all for your answers to my question. However, I still don't quite understand the interest of raw files. Flink says that it gives you control of all the parameters of the picture, but ithis is equally possible with jpeg and that's what I do all the time. I adjust exposure, contrast, colours, sharpness just as I want. So, what is really the difference ?