I find part of the problem is the 'what to take' one, not the sum total of lenses. I like using the 55-300 so that's going on my next holiday, but I usually take the 16-45 and 24-90 - both good 'general purpose' zooms, the former is my main walkabout in the city and sometimes mountains, the latter for countryside and coast. So something that overlaps most of their range would be useful - 17-70 maybe, having not been too impressed with what I've seen from the 18-135.

Chris,

I thought your pictures were very useful, much more so than reading lots of technical details (which I assume is what's meant by 'measurebating'). However they (and others I've seen) do put me off it somewhat, v. my current zooms - if I want something to take the place of both the 16-45 and 24-90, it will probably be the 17-70.

Regards,
Stan

I've owned an MZ50, which I thought wasn't that well made compared with modern and older Pentaxes (the wind-on mechanism became faulty after a couple of years and only about 30 films), and now have an ME Super that has been serviced by Harrow Technical. The ME is a very nice compact SLR and a delight to use - but of course it's manual or aperture priority only, and no autofocus (strangely while I use my K20D with everything set to manual 95% of the time, I normally have the ME on aperture priority). It should be compatible with your F/FA lenses.

Stan

Now I've used the 7D and had a play with the K5 I'd say they are directly comparable, with different strengths - ignoring my Pentax lens collection my thoughts would be K5 for landscape/architecture/objects (ultimate image quality) and 7D for action (still just ahead on autofocus?). The 60D definitely looks a step down from the K5 - though for someone considering the 60D and not wedded to Canon, the K5 looks very tempting.

I'm totally out of date with Nikon - when I still had a choice pre-lens collection, I decided the K20D was better than the D90 and cheaper than the 300!

In order (on K20D):

DA 16-45 (city/general use walkabout)
FA 24-90 (country/coast walkabout)
DA 55-300 (maybe 5-10% of shots)
A 50 1.7 (very occasionally e.g. portraits)
A 24 2.8 (rarely, least used lens)

On ME Super:

M 50 2.0 and M 28 3.5 about equal. Must try it with the 24-90!

hmmm... looks like an LX5/G12 etc competitor, but with interchangeable lenses.

Sensor about 50% smaller than LX5, bulky zoom (hopefully compensated for by better optical quality?), plus a useful prime. The optical VF only seems to be designed for the prime.

The sample images do look quite good. May be worth considering if I ever replace my LX3, though for a bulkier camera it will be competing with the G12.

I used to have a 28-80mm on my MZ50 and it seemed fine. For going wider the FA 24-90mm is an excellent zoom which works equally well on film and digital, but maybe too expensive (and hard to find) if you want it just for one assignment.

Stan

K5 split Seconded! OK so there's KatzEye but it would be nice to have the option of a Pentax one that works with spot metering.

At the moment a DA 55-300 to replace my Sigma 70-300. Maybe longer-term a K5 - I like my K20D but can see some advantages to the K5.

I've just received my ME Super back from Harrow. Very pleased with the result, and the focusing screen while not perfect is much cleaner than I expected. Second roll of film going in at the weekend.

Stan