I was expecting you Mr Bond... I mean Mike-P. But despite your fears I am not part of the sale rush sparked by photozone - this never materialized, though I have read all about it and I can see why the reviewers were so harsh on it based on the asking price for it. As far as I can tell I'm the only one trying to part with one here.

Yes, I'll post a copy of the receipt of course. I bought it from SRS.

Why am I selling the lens? There's a complicated answer to that - if it was a simple matter it would occur to me months ago and I wouldn't have bought it in the first place. I can say outright that I'm not selling it because I think it's rubbish, it's a mighty fine lens.

If you want the long answer I'm happy to oblige.

Many years ago when I decided to concentrate on things other than photography I moved from Nikon to Olympus as I relegated photography to being my hobby and it looked like a nice, tight, compact system - lighter, with better value for money etc.. I was happy with it for years and I was especially fond of the 12-60 lens (it's a legend in the 4/3 world) which stayed on the body 80% of the time. Then I got all my photo gear stolen when I was moving house (I was shattered). A year passed and in the meantime Olympus pretty much ditched the 4/3 in favour of m4/3. I looked around and went for Pentax. OK, I should've known better, but I didn't and I tried to use my Olympus habits in the Pentax world. Turns out it doesn't work this way. I thought the 18-135 would be my 12-60 but, and again, after this many years you'd expect me to know this by now, each system is different and doesn't have perfect equivalents. There is more to moving from Olympus to Pentax than just swapping the logo. I'm happy to pay for this educational experience and feel free to laugh at me good-naturedly.

In the end, it's a nice lens and it's no biggy if it doesn't go. It's just I can tell it's not going to get anywhere near the sort of use the 12-60 did and I am firmly a strictly amateur photographer now so I'm keeping my gear simple and limited (talking about the numbers, not the limited series of lenses ).

Thanks for the advice. Here are some photos I've taken a minute ago in the glorious sunshine we have here in Portsmouth today (I don't have a tent, also I've got my right thumb bandaged and it's surprising how difficult everything is then. Opposable thumbs are definitely the thing that got us here, not our brains).






If it's more than 10 quid for postage I'll cover that.

Does the price sound fair? It is essentially 100 pounds less for being unboxed and handled briefly. The only gripe people have about this lens is that it's too expensive - well, I fixed that for you

Pentax DA 18-135 3.5-5.6 WR in pretty much mint condition, less then 50 pics taken (and all of them indoors and most just as a test) but it's too late to return it so I'm selling it as used.

Comes with everything except a box as it was bought as a bundle with the k-5. I'll put it in a 55-200 box that I have but if you really want to I'll give you the box the bundle came in, it's just it's a bit large.

390 quid + whatever Royal Mail postage for this would be, I'll edit this later when I find out or you could pick it up if you live anywhere near Portsmouth. To be honest that would be best, as I've never sold anything on the net and this is my first tentative step and I'm not sure how to handle payment as I'm not a store. I wish there was some FAQ here.

The fact I'm newly registered here doesn't help. The only thing I can say is that I'm a real person, you can have a look at my website and see my horrible snaps and I've been on dpreview since forever (username: Paul Szczepanek) and since I never use aliases you can easily track me down anywhere on the net

I'm sorry if I'm doing this wrong, I'd welcome advice as to how to fix this ad.