Tried a little Post Processing on the shot of the M4 as the first turned out alot different than it was looking in Photoshop. Have sorted that by working in monitor colourspace. I'll have to do a few trials to see how my prints look compared to onscreen, but it's working for web entries for now.

Original:
[IMG]http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q105/RR76/m4split.jpg[/IMG]

Rework:
[IMG]http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q105/RR76/M4SPLIT2.jpg[/IMG]

As far as I'm aware you don't have to pay online for the Jessops in-store pickup, so you could use that as an avenue to have a feel of one. Jessops are actually competitive on the k20d kit, I got my local pro centre to pricematch them.

I was planning to get a dslr in January but saw the K20d selling out in many places so thought I'd better handle one while I had the chance (as it was on my possible list). I popped into my local Pentax pro centre & they had one on the shelf, I tested it along with the others on my possible list & ended up walking out with it.
I was so impressed I bought it there & then. Handling & build quality are way above anything at a similar price point.

Alan, you wouldn't be disappointed with the D300 but it is twice the price. Unless you're shooting lots of fast moving sport though it's not worth it in my view.

If you have the budget for a D300 I'm not sure why you're looking at the 18-250. The longer the zoom range, the more compromises the designers have to make. You'd be much better served by a couple of faster zooms instead, you'll appreciate the brighter viewfinder & have more scope in controlling DOF.

Don't forget that Pentax have image stabilisation built in, so even a £10 1980's lens off ebay will be stabilised !

Come to think of it I'm not a huge landscape fan so I think the 16mm would be wide enough for me. When I was considering the 24-70 or 28-75 I'd obviously have wanted a wider option.

So my (current)new plan to blow £1500 is thus..

Pentax 10-17 (can always de-fish,if I really need a shot wider than 16mm)
Pentax 16-50 da* & Pentax 50-135 da*

after cashback this should leave around £350

I'm torn whether to get the Sigma 70mm (reportedly sharp enough wide open for portraits & razor sharp stopped down for Macro) or get the new 55mm da* f1.4 to use for portraits & low light & start saving for a more serious macro lens ie: sigma 150 or 180.

As Kris says, you should see the resulting loss of light in the viewfinder whilst it stops down to meter.

You could try the DOF preview as this essentially stops the lens down whilst you hold it on. Try it at f22 so the change in light will be plainly obvious. If this works on your A lenses & not M ones then it's the lenses. If it doesn't even work on your A lenses then your camera is at fault. - Take the lens off completely, turn your camera to Manual mode & turn it on. Then try the DOF preview button to see if the aperture lever on the camera is moving.

Hello fellow Bob. I saw that book in Borders & it is not a book you'd read on the bus to work that's for sure. Make sure you get them some physio vouchers as a pressie too when you're at the surgery getting your back fixed from carrying it home !

Yup, I vote insurance too. Your camera may be fixable but it doesn't sound as if the lens & grip are.

You'll be less out of pocket paying your excess & increased premium than replacing all that kit. As the others say, you may be lucky & get a K20d instead.

If they insist you relinquish the damaged gear I'd be tempted to keep the battery, focus screen & lens caps. If they don't, you can always use it for manual focus practice with some nice older primes !

Bargain

Cloning out the wires would result in the images being even more extraordinary I think and leave you guessing even more than I am already.

I like the second one best, it looks as though your above the clouds looking down, as we can't see the faces of the frogmen (just guessing here but I'd say it was modern art depicting frogmen)

2nd shot not from in a tunnel just out in the open air. It's a good time of year to try this type of shot with all the xmas lights around. The remote release was sat on my lap & using it was far less dangerous$ than smoking/eating/drinking whilst driving, would be preferable to operate it as a passenger though.

Thanks for the comments, these were my first shots in anger with the K20d, I'd tried some test shots at home to get used to the handling, but these were the first shots I took with the intention of processing them, so I'm fairly pleased with the results. Hopefully I'll improve as I get to grips with a Dslr, although I'm not promising anything !

Ok so I had what I needed all along. I'm running Vista & it has a Windows Photo Gallery - I had no idea it was there. You can tag images very easily & the search function is easy to use to. Who'd have thought that Microsoft would have made something user friendly (even if I didn't know it was there)

I've downloaded the PEF & DNG codecs for Vista & now I'm good to go. I'm much happier now, as I thought Adobe Bridge was terrible. Might be good for a pro's workflow perhaps but it's far too complicated for my liking.