That's what the 15-30mm is for!

Sorry Jules, at my annual review with the accountant my eyes glaze over after five minutes so not much help on the details. The medium format range has been a bit quiet recently, Pentax pioneered this format for DSLR type bodies and it has been very successful for them, but others are moving into the same field. I wonder if this is where the next big release will be, given the comments issued by Ricoh?

The seed of this rumour is found in Ricoh's quarterly financial report which shows a reduction in forecast operating profit from 40 to 30 thousand million yen (!); the net sales forecast remains the same at 2 million million yen (!!). This is attributed to the digital camera business and is described in accountancy-speak as a 10 thousand million yen loss against the earlier forecast. To summarise, sales have been as predicted but this has yielded less profit than expected. There are a number of factors which can cause this but it is reassuring that sale numbers are on track. If the profit margin on cameras (and lenses) is less than expected then that could partly explain the recent price hikes.

I suspect there are those who mischievously start rumours with alterior
motives which are fanned by the 'no smoke without fire' philosophy; rival manufacturers perhaps? A financier hoping for a quick payback on the share price? (It went up 4 yen by the way).

Why, might I ask?

I have kept the K50 which I had before the K1 and found it is excellent as a lightweight option for long walks with the plastic 18-55mm lens. In those circumstances low light performance isn't an issue, and the APS- C lenses are smaller and lighter than their FF equivalents.

Some really nice 35mm bodies too!

Still £1799 in a number of shops. Easter weekend deals coming?

My local LCE handled everything for no charge even though I didn't buy the lens from them.

Going back to the original question, there is a special K1 section on the Ricoh website. A major consideration in your body choice is your lens collection; if you have lenses only compatible with APS-C sensors then they will work on the K1 but cropped. This is ok as a stopgap but be prepared to swop for FF compatible lenses, some of which are more expensive and heavier than their APS-C equivalents but make the most of the larger and more noise-tolerant sensor.

I should also add that a typical RAW file is around 42mb which my computer can cope with ok but struggles with processing files up to around 150mb which you get with sensor shift. I have no idea what happens when you merge up to 2000 images for a multiple exposure!

Trust me, the Sigma 150-500 will leave a tiny scratch, as I suspect all Sigmas do; it is to do with the width of the mount which I imagine is the same on all their lenses. Put a standard Pentax rear lens cap on the mount and see how much is left exposed, but they will replace it for free so why not get it done? I had excellent sharp images from mine on the K1 so if you send it away presumably it will get whatever upgrade is needed.

The Samyang 24mm TS tilt shift lens is available in Pentax mount, worth checking out.