Things like the default richness of colours can generally be adjusted according to the preferences of the photographer. Pentax's top tier cameras K7, K5, K3... all have this option both as presets 'Bright', 'Neutral', 'Landscape'... and further tweaked by saturation of individual colours (red, green, blue, cyan, magenta & yellow). I'm not sure if the entry level models support this level of control, but it wouldn't be difficult to adjust in post anyway.

My own experience of Pentax vs Canon/Nikon is that the controls on Pentax seem better thought out, they fall more naturally to my fingers, and often involve less menu diving. This might be somewhat unfair though as it generally those with beginners CaNikon models that ask for help in finding features, while my recent Pentax cameras have been in the semi-pro class. It's a long time since I've used my K100d but IIRC it's ergonomics where also pretty good (certainly beating the likes of the 650D)

I suspect you'll find any modern Pentax has a large number of extra features, but will still feel quite familiar after even a very short while.

Arrived safely, exactly as described.

Thanks George!
Hope you can make Oulton

Thanks for the hard work Nigel, that definitely makes easier reading than the manual & covers more information...

If you do a 3rd edition could you add a table of the features supported by the different models?
It's obviously based around your hardware, but mostly very relevant to my hardware too.
A quick look up of my 360FGZ's limitations would be helpful, and such a table should be very useful to those in the market for a new flash.

For my Bigmos I use a strap fixed to the tripod foot of the lens, but usually carry the lens itself rather than letting the strap take the weight.
The best attachment to a monopod will depend on your subjects.
Direct connection should be OK for cars but will be useless for BIF. Sideways movement is easily achieved by rotating the monopod.
I've seen some small units (just under the lens or body) that effectively act as a hinge allowing vertical movement, and I'd expect these to work OK if you need much vertical movement. They might be more difficult to get balanced than the gimbal type you linked to.
see:
Manfrotto tilt head or
Chinese version with QR

Personally I don't like a ball or 3 way heads on a monopod, though I've heard of some people liking these options.

Common sense tells you wrong then John.

Magnification here is size of image on the sensor / subject size. The rules for enlargement with extension apply whatever format is used. I've seen this relationship described in large format books, where a !:1 macro of a rose can include the whole flower...

The final image might be bigger but applying the crop factor is effectively the same as printing a larger image. It's this sort of reasoning that manufacturers use to put 'macro' on zoom lenses that only reach 1/4 life size or less on the sensor.

I'm definitely interested George, but my bank balance still hasn't recovered from the winter...

I thought I'd kept all mine permanently on BST, but recently when adding images from two systems to an Elements catalogue I found they didn't tie up - the 2 cameras being ~1 hr apart

It made tagging them considerably more laborious!

Lucky You!
I've managed to get a genuine Pentax M42 helicoid, but the K version is MUCH more useful..
Third party M42 ones are now quite common

Fatspiders answer is much better IMO.
You are correct that the focal length doesn't change (the OP didn't suggest it did).
FOV for DA lenses will apparently be at the same crop factor if auto cropping is enabled, if autocrop is turned off it will depend on the crop given in post to deal with insufficent coverage of DA lenses. Some of the primes cover the full frame sensor, those that don't (and the zooms) will vary in how much they actually cover.
Older lenses such as the F series, A series... will give full coverage as well as the FA lenses.

I'll normally take the family out for a walk at weekends during which I usually take a camera bag (but last sundays it was just the K7 & 18-55 - obviously I wanted another lens whilst out). Free time during working trips often falls into this sort of category, driving to Knockhill this summer will pretty much give me the choice of all of northern England for a 'lunch' break, but I'll have very little choice on the time of day I'll be at any spot.

Sometimes when I go out it's specifically to take photos, apart from lunchtimes & Monday nights with the club this tends to be fairly rare.

The emphasis on the two sorts of trip definitely varies - on a family walk I'm rarely allowed to stop for more than a minute or two, just for photos, on a photography trip there'll be time to set up a tripod & explore the angles...

There are of course other events that fall between the two - Such as local shows where I'll take loads of photos, but photography wasn't the only reason for going...