Many classics of photography are blurry and OOF by today's standards.

Not to mention the software will clobber other apps on your system (have seen this on Win XP and Win 7) and does all sorts of stuff behind the scenes without asking. I ban iTunes from computers I administer (right now, just those in our home), just as I ban Quicktime and (in the past) RealPlayer. All can bring a system to its knees and require an OS reinstall to fix.

Nasty stuff.

Have fun with it! There is a lot to learn but that is part of the excitement. I'd say it took me a year to get comfortable, and that was after a good grounding in film.

GIMP will do everything you need, though I am not an expert on its use. It reads RAW or you can use a plugin like UFRaw for extended support.

I own a K-x and really shoot low light often.. but I prefer the K20D. Not only is it nicer ergonomically, I find the RAW files take a lot more manipulation. My experience is that I get lower noise images out of untouched high ISO files on the K-x but then I can't do much to improve them. Whereas I can distinctly improve K20D images without them turning to mush (Using Noise Ninja). In side-by-side comparisons of my actual workflow I got at best one stop more out of the K-x.

But I lost more shots, since the viewfinder on the K20D makes it easier to get exact focus.

One day someone will give me a K-5 but until then...

There's a low count K20D for 300 quid in the sales thread.

I recommend the K20D which is still the best build, ergonomics and overall IQ of any of them. The newer cameras are smaller and have video, but unless you stretch to the K-7 you will be missing the two dial system. Since that seems out of your budget the answer is clear.

Is there such a thing as a bad macro lens? No-one ever admits as much!

DrOrloff, those are very nice shots. Love the textures and tones on the shrooms.

Tyr, that shot above is incredible!

Frogfish, congrats on a great lens. From what I have seen both the DA*300 and DA*60-250 produce excellent images, so really it's a choice between a little more reach or the versatility of the zoom.

But you can't really go wrong, for which we should thank Pentax. They sure do know how to make lenses.

It's such a great camera. And the shutter sound is certainly not something to ignore but use it creatively to get the attention of pets and small children!

The Vivitar 100/3.5 Macro I referenced above is the cheaper option. Make sure you get the older manual focus version and not the newer AF, which from all accounts is not worth it.

The three versions, all made by Kiron, are:

Vivitar Series 1 105/2.5
Kiron 105/2.8
Lester Dine 105/2.8

There are cosmetic differences between them but any optical variation is likely down to the sample and not the brand name. I have the former and spent 100 quid on top of the buying price to service it. When I picked it up there was a note on the lens that the tech wanted to talk to me. He said "that is a really good lens, you know".

I told him I did know!