I take your point John, but more profit is made from lenses than cameras. Pentax make nothing from someone picking up an an old M series lens from a car boot sale. Pentax need to attract additional sales from new users beyond the initial camera and kit lenses.

Here is a thought, what about an exchange deal? Trade in your old lenses to Pentax for credit against a new DA. Pentax could then refurbish and sell back into the market with an OEM warranty to new entry level users.

You might want to limit the reselling to the old classic manual focus primes, for which there appears to be quite a strong demand.

Regards - Steve

It could be argued that the K mount that we all know and love has become a bit of an albatross around the neck of Pentax.

Why, because the vast number of compatible lenses in the market that Pentax use as a selling point, actually harms them when it comes to selling new lenses. The DA designed for digital may be better on a DSLR, but it is not something that Pentax can push to much without compromising the advantage of the back catalogue.

Steve

Matt my experience is in line with your comment.

Steve

Remember any adjustment you make in debug mode will affect all of your lenses. There is no individual adjustment unlike the K20.



Steve

I agree , but like or not the K20 is seen as old technology. I doubt that its replacement will be significantly better, but low and middle range cameras are classed as consumer electronics and like everything else in that class they have short life cycles. The KM (2000)and K20 were practically given away in the US. An inability to sustain price increases in NA as seen eleswhere has probably hastened their demise.

Going back to the original post, the unease that the annoucement causes, is once again indicative of a poorly thought out marketing strategy.

Raise the price of a 18 month old design.

Announce it is being it being discountinued.

Fail to annouce what the replacement will be and when it will be available.

How many new K20 will be sold as a result of this brilliance?

I really do wonder why these people are still in employment.

Rant over - Steve

Glad to help - Steve

In the end it comes down to personal taste. If you are happy with it, then that is good enough.

Regards - Steve

Mike, the RAW is certainly very sharp and I agree with your comments above regarding the low light and crystal clear view.

I hope you don't mind , but I played around a little in Lightroom.

[IMG]http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa184/stevejcoe/secators2.jpg[/IMG]

Exposure +0.7

Selectively reduced sharpeness and clarity in areas with water droplets by 50%.

Resized and saved as SRGB for screen, no additional sharpening.

I don't think that this is any better, merely a different interpretation and it does lack overall sharpness. If I had more time I would have selectively sharpened certain areas to compensate.

Steve

One additional point to add when calibrating focus,that is use natural light. Tungsten lighting is known to affect AF.

Steve

Mike, for my taste it is still a little oversharpened, especially on the green foliage between the handles of the secators. Can you post a unprocessed image for comparison, or maybe a link to the RAW file?

Steve