If you've got highlight correction on, you won't be able to access the expanded ISO100 setting.

Track down and visit your local old school camera shop. With a bit of luck the gaffer will be able to release the mount with miraculous ease, possibly with some obscure looking tool, while you repay him by buying up as many lenses and accessories as you need/ can afford

Nice shite-hawks! These look good to me, I particularly like the second. You could possibly clone out the smallest OOF bird. Oh and the plumage on the first is especially well captured too.

Low light, and artificial light, can produce more noise at high ISOs. For me though, the K7 is fine up to ISO1250...

I went away on holiday with just the K7 and the tiny Pentax F 35-70mm zoom, with the DA 15mm in my pocket for wide-scapes. The DA 21mm would be good too, depending on your preference. I also use the F 35-70mm for street shooting. It's so discreet and pocketable, good sharpness and colour.

But when i want shallow DOF and am happy to stick to a fixed focal length, I take the DA35mm f2.4 instead.

Handy little lens isn't it! I like 'diners and dinner'

I think one of the problems must be the need for a converter to provide the correct registration distance on a NEX-type mirrorless body - this would turn those lovely pancakes lenses into bloaters! Pentax would need to introduce at least some new lenses specifically designed for mirrorless, and sadly the competition is way ahead of them at this point - hence why they went in a totally different direction with the Q. (It was a similar story for Nikon).

Hopefully Pentax can pull something new and surprising out of the bag though!

Are we talking about a barely audible whining noise? I hear it on my K7 sometimes. I always assumed it was something to do with the motor / magnet / whatever! that holds the mirror up in long exposures / live view / video. You can definitely faintly hear / feel the motor moving the sensor in live view, again I always thought this was normal... previously I had never noticed it because my last camera lacked live view, so never had the SR continuously activated.

I have never heard a rattle, apart from the slight clunk as the sensor is moved this way and that by the SR in response to slight camera movement.

Tamron 90mm - payment received, item posted.

I don't think this is true any longer... the Canon 18-55 IS is now 'king of the kits'