Well Dave, he did say it was tame!

Nice shots - no.2 in particular, nice framing and DOF.

For me the main advantage is they are smaller and lighter. I also like their IQ.

Larger pictures on the Picasa link.

I hesitate to bring it up, but the pictures in general look quite noisy with compression artefacts, a little phone-cam like. There are also burnt highlights galore. You sure you didn't revert to using the iphone?

For hillwalking, give me a DA15mm and a couple of other primes or a tiny zoom like the SMC-F 35-70mm over a zoom any day! I'll take the lower weight over the very occasional inconvenience of having to find a sheltered spot to change lenses. Generally when it siles down, my priorities switch from taking photos, to seeking refuge!

But yes - the 18-135mm does make sense if you *know* it's going to rain heavily, and fully intend to carry on taking pictures.

Live view is an absolute joy to use for tripod work and old manual lenses - I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss it! The Kr will also give less image noise, not just in high ISO shots, but also shots at base ISO where you lighten the shadows. It will also be much faster than the k200d. Very occasionally, the slow burst mode of the k200d used to be very frustrating, for me. Apart from that, it's an excellent machine.

Re a 16-300mm lens, not only would such a beast be very compromised optically, and expensive, you would not want to take it out walking as it would weigh a ton.

Those film take up spools can be a pig.

I have shifted viewfinder dust with the rocket blower before. You do run the risk of blowing dust around and it settling somewhere just as - or even more - annoying, but if that happens, just repeat the process. Yes it can be frustrating! Angle the blower upwards, use short sharp puffs, and angle the body so the dust drops out rather than *into* the camera!

Numerous reports of this exact problem, over on the other forum.

I doubt that it's a particular problem with the K5, as I can't see that they'd have changed it since the K7. Could just be that more people own the K5, so there are more stories about these rare 'faults'.

Presumably you can use it with a telescope, but I think the longer the focal length, the shorter the time period which can be corrected for.

Bingo! And it uses the in-camera SR to move the sensor in compensation. A really creative stroke of genius from Pentax's engineers there!