, I do realise that John, I was talking series of photos at the same aperture.
Just did a test with focus chart and... 250mm, f/4.0 defocusing manually in one direction, getting focus via AF, defocusing manually in other direction, back in focus with AF, and one shot shows front focus, other back focus, or maybe it is K10D... (and K20D nearly 4 weeks with pentax and still no news).

And bonus, same stuff with DA 55-300 for comparison.

f/5.6 crop



f/8.0 crop

Something from me, not a real life yet, just "from the balcony" ones.
I tried some reals yesterday, but it was a bit late, sun was hidding, handheld and I've got a bit of mixed results, sometimes maybe too mixed, If weather good later on today, will try something proper.
I tried one more balcony test today, on a metal white sign with black letters on it (focusing was on these), sign some 2 metres in front of the wall, did few photos for each f-stop to pick up the best one, black letters came out not really sharp every time, at every tested f-stop (4, 5.6, , but the sharpness of the wall behind it was varying, what leads me to think that focusing was not consistient, it could be that the black-white edges were too small for K10D focus sensor and it was a bit of confused (however was setting up focus without hunting every time), or soemthing else, will have to look again on it.
And now back to some samples, below how the full frame looks at f/4, then 1:1 crops from f4/5.6/8, just bear in mind that clouds were moving quite fat, so the pictures will show a bit of different light conditions. Photos from the tripd with remote of course, focusing on the white 'water' text.

f/4.0 full pic.
[IMG]http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/7239/f4full.jpg[/IMG]

f/4.0 crop
[IMG]http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/2151/f4crop.jpg[/IMG]

f/5.6 crop



f/8.0 crop
[IMG]http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/2848/f8crop.jpg[/IMG]

And a small correction, price via forum is 315 GBP (means I will be looking for a bit more on ebay).

Thanks for all who added to this topic, results are:
Galoot ( 2 x first vote), Isdky ( 1 first and 1 sec vote, same as Jackitec, but as the one who submitted RAW I sustain my vote, so it is Isdky).

So, Galoot would you like to submit next RAW, maitain new topic for the challenge, set-up ending date, count votes, (etc) and all that fun ? .

Some people aready had a chance to touch and play with new camera. They of course can't speak about it, I don't know any of them personally, but as they haven't said anything metal, poeple were trying to read their minds, or maybe somebody who tried to read the excitement in their eyes with the new camera could find some info that new camera is a "new" body, not really a K20D continuation, despite some features similar, quite different and SDM kit lens is quite possible. But of course we have to wait for official info - end of May .

Box with mine 60-250 is now in my hands.
Two days ago I was looking at other PentaxPro dealer webpage and noticed they were showing they had this lens in stock, price was... significantly lower than first batch price from our beloved (other) PentaxPro dealer (I guess they have had ordered this lens in the previous century to get this price), after speaking to people and few phone calls I've found they had only one lens (so I haven't got any good info about other lenses waiting to pass it to you), encouraged with the first samples uploaded by Unlocker decided to take the risk. Shame my K20D is still with Pentax for reparation .

We haven't received many votes from people participating, so I guess at the end of today I will count votes we have and ask the best scorer whether he would like to upload RAW for next competition.

So, how it goes when compared to sigma 100-300 EX?, any more thoughts now?

I rarely used this lens, but I remember it wasn't that bad, I will take some samples (for documenting) during the next days.