Thanks everyone. K5 posted to SRS this morning - they have agreed to send me a new one. At least the wet and slushy weather is making it easier to bear (and I've still got the K20).

Stan

I've just taken delivery of a new K5IIs from SRS, and started to find my way around the controls. In principle I like it, but... first serious try-out today, at Lyme Regis, and I noticed that most (not all) of the images have a vertical green line close to the right border, as in the one below (shooting in RAW and converting using Elements, but the line is present in close-up on the camera screen). Checking back, it's in most of my earlier (indoor) shots too - so not a cold weather aberration. I'm guessing there's a fault somewhere rather than my ineptitude in setting the camera up...

Just ordered a K5IIs from SRS. I've traded in my old Olympus C5060 for their offer - sorry to see it go really as it was my first digital and clocked up 3000+ frames on my round-Britain sailing trip several years back, but in reality it's just been sitting in my cupboard for the last few years.

Now I'll be able to compare the IIs with my K20D, and also hopefully with a friend's Canon 7D.

Hi, the 24-90 is an excellent lens if you don't need a particularly wide angle - mine would be on my camera all the time if it wasn't for that. It doesn't feel as well-made as say the 17-70, but the image quality is just as good, maybe slightly sharper at some apertures. The 16-45 is likely to be easier to find though, and slightly cheaper (about £145 I would guess).

Stan

I have a KatzEye on my K20, and it's a great improvement for manual focussing. It doesn't affect autofocus, but as andrewk says, it affects spot metering. Centre-weighted and 'green' metering seem about the same.

In practice my DA17-70, which is on my K20D about 70% of the time.

If I don't expect to need the wider end, then the FA24-90 - IQ just as good, lighter, and less pincushion distortion. It also maintains (manual) focus better when zooming, though on auto it's noisier and lacks quick shift.

I will be interested to see the planned DA*17-85 (approx) if it materialises next year.

I bought my K20D about four years ago after doing some web/conversational research then tracking down and handling the cameras on my shortlist; I'd previously owned a Praktica and an MZ50, but if I had a bias it was for Olympus because of my first digital, a C5060WZ. If I'd just gone to the camera shops and taken their recommendations (no Pentax dealer in my town) I would probably have ended up with a Nikon D90 or D300 - both good cameras IMO but I preferred the feel of the K20, and thought with the D300 I'd be paying more for features that I wouldn't make much use of. No particular feel for wanting 'popular' or 'less popular' brands - if anything my experience is that, other things being equal, less well-known marques often represent better value.

I don't have a f/1.2 lens, but I can focus my SMC-A 50mm f/1.7 quite accurately fully open using the KatzEye screen. My main reason for buying a KatzEye was that I was using a 300mm zoom, sometimes fully open at the long end, and had problems focusing manually - plus having grown up with an old fully manual film SLR I expect to see a split prism when I look through the viewfinder!

Has anyone tried a KatzEye screen at f/1.2, and does it work?

For digital I've only used the K20 which from a handling viewpoint is just right, particularly when matched with a medium-sized zoom (17-70, 55-300 etc) - everything seems to fall to hand nicely. The potentially better image quality and low light performance of the K5 do tempt me, but the K5 doesn't feel as good in the hand and I might wait to see what its replacement is like.

I have both and think the 17-70 is slightly better in terms of image quality, plus better build and more versatile - so it's become my favourite walkabout lens (the 16-45 hasn't been on the camera since I bought the 17-70). I posted a comparison of both lenses plus the FA24-90 a few months ago:

http://www.sld.demon.co.uk/lenses.pdf