Not really an upgrade - they're relasing DA-L versions of the WR kit lenses. So no hood, plastic mount, but WR.

Spectacular set Alan!!! I love the humour in a lot of these... and the light on Puffin Portrait is gorgeous.

Terry - your shot on the gallery looks good, so you're clearly doing something right!

A lot of this comes down to the right kind of light, rather than the camera.

Contacts are in the wrong place, so you couldn't use it... not that you'd want to, as it's not deigned for the K10D.

In Av mode, set ISO to 200 and aperture to f8. This will ensure good lens performance and depth of focus for landscapes. If the shutter speed drops below 1/30 you can raise the ISO.

AF centre point. Angle the camera so the thing you want in focus is central, focus, and then recompose with the shutter button held halfway down to maintain the focus.

I tend to use metering set to centre weighted. Check the results on the back of the screen and add exposure compensation if needed.

Shoot RAW+Jpeg so that shots can be rescued in Photoshop etc if needed. For bright, poppy out-of-camera jpegs, use the 'Vibrant' setting.

This all seems like a lot if you are used to a point-and-shoot camera. But it will soon be second nature! In the interim, you could just try using the 'Landscape' scene mode and changing the camera setting to 'vibrant'.

Great shots, Gary.

I think Tom decided that last week's shots were just too tame, so requested another shoot this week, bringing along more props and several cans of household paint. I brought some powder paint.

There's nothing new under the sun, Algi!

Yeah another whiner. What's it to him what Ricoh decides to call itself? His posts are full of whining about other stuff. Whining about the release date of the Canon 70D. Trembling about the new Samsung smartphone/camera ('another nail in the coffin' he calls it). He needs to lighten up and stop whining.

Why have they gone down a blind alley? They have three options - retain the Pentax name as they are currently doing (and put the Ricoh logo somewhere subtle on the body), put the Ricoh name up front and use the Pentax name as a secondary 'product line' name (think Pentax Optio), or get rid of the name Pentax entirely and go Ricoh all the way! None of these would bother me in the slightest.

I'm confused why this is a 'blind alley', and can only conclude you're determined to see only negativity wherever you look!