I honestly can't see the difference in price being worth buying the K-r. Besides which, you can find the K-x even cheaper than you mention... check out the deals thread on this forum. The rest of the money can be saved up for lenses or a body upgrade to a K-5 or equivalent down the road.

Seems to me there are more people from UK and EU on the "other forum" than there are here!

Prices are different depending on where you look. But the best place to get a fair estimate is the Pentax Forums sales thread, not their lens database, which contains historical and just plain inaccurate information (where price is concerned). Just because someone found an old lens for a tenner doesn't mean that is the going rate!

Well, you've answered one half of your question. Sell the ones that "rarely get a look in" and see how much money you have. I don't think you need lots of mediocre zooms or two macro lenses.

Then buy the FA 77mm Limited because, frankly, if you haven't used a Limited you do not know what you are missing. If you have any money left over, by the other FA Limiteds in order of focal length interest.

Well, the choice of focal length starts to get into the politics of street shooting - how you are interacting with your subjects, whether you ask them first, how you wish to treat them etc. Sneaking shots with a long focal length is not my way, since I do not wish to treat other people as prey and take the role of a voyeur. Neither do I care to ask permission before I snap, and am much more interested in environmental portraits than framing a face.

Others will have different priorities, but there is a reason that 35mm became the only lens many photographers needed to use for this. In the same way that a tele does not capture a human perspective on a scene, anything too wide flattens out differences in the scale of things. The interesting parts of the picture end up lost in the uninteresting. Cropping after the fact only reduces resolution and smears detail. It is always better to get it right in the camera, and to frame what you really want to shoot.

On APS-C 24mm corresponds to 35mm film, in terms of field of view.

Primes are definitely the way to go for size and unobtrusiveness photography, especially as they will have a proper distance scale many newer lenses lack. Also a manual focus lens is advantageous as it will stick to the distance it has been set but still allow for easy manual change.

Even though I have the excellent DA 12-24mm zoom, I use my manual Vivitar 24/2 for street shooting.

Ah yes, since not all the models have the serial number on the front rim. And it's only that designation that I use to distinguish models, since so far that has been sufficient. I understand your very reasonable oversight.

Of course the image is about framing, lighting, exposure and all the rest of the photographer's craft... plus the subject! That's what makes a good picture, not the darned sensor!

(Just to put things in the proper perspective.)

(But I would still buy the K-5 if I could. All the benefits of the top-end ergonomics and the high ISO sensor.)

Thanks, yes, that is what I mean. I have shot extensively with several models of Vivitar 28mm and 24mm and all benefit immensely from being stopped down once. But I use them regularly since, if you find a good copy, they are excellent lenses.

Well, some have told me I am daft and it is true that after PP no-one is really going to pick out which camera took which shot.

But there is something about the newer sensors that I don't like.