That's one thing that I've noticed with the Pentax K-7, coming from a Canon 40D and 50D. The shutter is just so much quieter and more refined, which makes it very useful for me during church ceremonies.

I'm not sure how useful this is to the majority of us as the Adobe software they have for sale is for students. You'll need to submit your student ID to Adobe before they'll send you a serial number, so it's not like you could easily cheat the system if you wanted to.

I've installed it. Don't notice anything different, and it looks like my AF micro adjustments have not been reset.

The last time I was in Jessops, I heard one of the sales people trying to push a D700 onto a first time DSLR buyer saying that was what you needed to get good photos. I purposely chuckled and the sales person finally gave in and said you could probably get by with a D300, but it would still be best to have a D700.

While I agree with the sentiment that we're making a mountain out of a molehill with regards to AF speed, your example isn't helping to settle the argument. The bird looks like its flying across the scene, which isn't going to be as difficult for the AF system to handle since the distance between subject and camera doesn't change as much. If the bird was flying towards or away from the camera, now that's something else.

It may be clever, it's just not very useful

There's nothing in the K-7 that I find particularly innovative. What it does represent is excellent value. For the price, you'll struggle to find another kit that provides all the features coupled with the build quality.

That's what I meant. Pentax isn't a large company and can't really afford to produce anything too esoteric. Everything they produce needs to be a financial success or they could be in trouble. Like you say, the FF market isn't big and neither is the MF market. In fact, with the introduction of high resolution FF cameras like the Sony A900 and Nikon D3X I would have thought that the demand for MF cameras is on the decline. Why pay £10k for a camera that doesn't do much better than a £1.5k camera?

I would have thought that a FF camera would have made more sense than a medium format one, given the size of Pentax (the company + user base). It should be interesting to see how this plays out.

I've not had good experience with them. I tried buying a Tokina 16-50mm f/2.8 lens from them a while back. When it turned out that the lens was not in stock (the website said it was) it took them over 2 weeks before I was refunded for the purchase. In fact, as I had paid using Google Checkout I even had to complain to Google before I received my money.

I'd stay away from them if I were you.