I like these a lot, especially no. 7; don’t know about no. 8 though, what is a xatnep camera?! Impressive how the 40 year old lens performs.

Her name is Elena Shumilova, not a Pentax user but never mind it's her skill that gets the results not the equipment. Most are shot on or around her farm but more recently from trips abroad.

link

I follow a prolific Russian photographer on Flickr who uses just two prime lenses, a 50mm and an 85mm, for outstanding results. If that is all you need in the bag then the weight would be less of an issue; I don’t think this lens is really intended as a “”just in case” addition to your bag along with several others but is designed to be a no compromise best available lens for specific tasks.

I suspect many who were too quick to switch to mirrorless from Nikon and Canon harbour regrets now, especially if they needed to replace expensive lenses, flash and other accessories. As for the heavy f 2.8 70-200mm, an f4 version is due next spring and I dare say some will be keen to swop, cheaper than changing whole systems.

Is it just me getting sick and tired of all this negativity?

There is always the Manfrotto L-bracket but is a crude and expensive contraption. To cope with the Kirk L-bracket I changed the mounts on my Manfrotto heads for a replacement by Sunwayfoto which will take both Manfrotto and Arca Swiss plates.

You could combine a trip to Clifton Cameras with one to Slimbridge, probably an easier run down the M5.[/quote]Hmmm... Good point... Never used them so never considered them before.[/quote]They do have a Pentax display but as much of their stock is in a warehouse it’s worth a call first if there is something specific you have in mind and they will fetch it over.

Oh, right, I assumed that converting from a full jpeg to a smaller one would degrade more than from a source RAW file so thanks I will look at what Lightroom offers.

Sorry, yes JPEGs of course, it was rather late!

Thanks McGregni, Following your comments I took another look and yes they don't look as sharp as they should and whilst I have improved them a bit I think a few factors have caused this. Firstly, the light was quite dim but with bright patches so I was being careful to avoid blown highlights and underexposed slightly. At the time I didn't judge a grad filter to be necessary but was wrong and found I needed to apply one in PP, and raising the exposure introduced some noise which I hadn't noticed before. And finally I reduced the pdfs to import into PU which degraded the sharpness a bit more. These aren't meant as excuses but lessons for me to remember for next time, so McGregni your comments have been most constructive.