I'd go for a travel lens. The only reason I could possibly want a netbook for would be so that I could download and edit photos on my travels. These days since I shoot JPEG, I can fit at least 1500 photos on an 8 GB card and SD cards have come down in price over the years.

I've been tempted by the Sigma 18-250, but I settled on the Pentax 18-250 which has now been discontinued. I had to pick up a used copy on eBay but I decided to go down this route to benefit from the K-7's automatic distortion and CA correction.

A horse with a lame leg? I've never heard of the term before. Not in the context of photography anyway

Their house, their rules. As always, consumers are free to vote with their wallet.

That's the wrong lens Gwyn, you're looking at the 70-300mm f/4-5.6 while the lens we're talking about is the 70-200mm f/2.8 constant aperture. The new lens is definitely an EX lens. Though having used countless Sigma lenses, IMHO the EX designation means very little.

The 70-200mm is FX compatible, they do have a 50-150mm that's APS-C only and I hope this gets released with OS some point down the line.

I have the 70-200mm Mk II on Canon and it's a fantastic lens (front focuses a little but that's correctable). If the IQ is better on this lens, I'd be very tempted to buy a copy for my K-7.

Only full blown Photoshop has the ability to fix CAs built in. With Photoshop Elements, you'll have to rely on a plugin for that functionality. There's a plugin called PTLens which does exactly that, and I've had it for quite a few years now and it does what it says on the tin.

Why not get a fast ~30mm prime to complement your current kit? The Sigma 30mm f/1.4 is a fairly cheap lens (compared to the Pentax 31mm) and should provide you with loads of fun.

You don't even need to be in the US. Try using that lens here in the UK. You'll be arrested for being either a pedo or a terrorist.

I've seen this image before, and I even downloaded it and played with the colour picker tool in my photo editor. They're the same colour, and I think that's very fascinating.

Not all Sigma lenses front focus.

Going back to the K-7, having had more on my hands to consider the merits of the camera I think it's right that it won most innovative camera of the year. I'm still not entirely convinced that the automatic horizon correction is the main event

Coming from the Canon world, here's a few things that I've found so useful on the K-7 that I'd struggle to use my Canon 50D. Listed in no particular order.
- Excellent auto-white balance, particularly under artificial lighting.
- Automatically fixes CAs and distortions.
- Excellent metering in tricky scenarios, scenes where I would have apply exposure compensation with the 50D just work fine on the K-7.
- Build quality that's way ahead of anything in this price bracket.

While it may not have the best high ISO performance or the fastest AF module, I find that with the K-7 I'm spending less time in front of a computer and more time behind the viewfinder. That can only be a good thing!