It is a nice lens, ignore the measurebators. Does exactly what is says on the tin, good all weather walk around lens with fast AF and nice bokeh.

Had to hand mine to my wife as the price for getting a K-5. I may need a second one.

Good news everybody!

/Professor Farnsworth

Nice chap at LCE had one to swap out with. Faulty camera being returned to Pentax.



Very happy. Only time will tell though as I am not sticking the camera in the shower. I amsure this being the UK it will rain soon enough.

Happens to all manufacturers, have seen D3, D700, 5DMkii and other failures in greater numbers than Pentax ones.

I'll have to see what stance they take. It does state Weatherproof construction in all the marketing material for the camera and it isn't the lens that failed.

Yes, just one seal being out of place, damaged, etc. is as little as it takes to compromise the camera.

I'll let everyone know how I get on later in the week.

I was very sad to discover that after some light rain my new K-5 failed to turn on. It had the 18-135 mounted but the lens was not zoomed in the rain as it does pull air into the lens.

The lens had no signs of water ingress and was completely dry inside. There was no water ingress at the lens mount on the camera.

After drying the outside of the K-5 I opened all the ports to check for water ingress. I saw no signs of this. Under the flash mechanism was very wet but I can't see anywhere water would have gotten in.

The mode dial was wet to touch and when I placed some paper towel against it loads of water was drawn out from the lock button and edges of the wheel. I left the camera on some cloth after drying the outside and came back to a very wet cloth.

Seems to me that at least the mode select dial may be leaking and possibly some seals on the bottom of the camera as that is where the water seems to have come out of onto the cloth.

I never had any problems with my K10D in any level of rain or humidity. I even used the built in flash in a torrential downpour for more than 20 minutes.

Needless to say I am disappointed and it will have to go back. It shouldn't be a repair job, it should be a replacement as the future reliability of the body may be affected by the ingress of water.

Sadly I don't have my K10D any more as I traded it in and someone bought it as soon as it went on display at LCE in Plymouth.

It is really annoying that this has happened but I guess better to find out sooner rather than later.

Anyone else had faulty seals? I've only seen one other person report it with any Pentax camera. Sadly, just my luck.

It definitely does not cover a 135 frame, mounted it on an ME super a few days ago just so see the image circle. Corners and sides completely black in the viewfinder.



Our copy seems to be sharp even at 135mm. Got a little moire on some of the America's cup catamaran rigging.

I am really pleased with the quality of colour, sharpness, size, weight, build quality, etc. Only thing that is annoying is I did kind of say my wife could have it and because of that I am sorely tempted to get a second for myself. Probably shouldn't though.

I really dislike Canon ergonomics, they seem to be non existent. Wheel on top of the camera? Who made that mad choice?

Nikon have the closest feel.

Well, I do abuse the spot removal tool.

I love spot removal abuse! You can make some really drastic edits just using that.

It does slow down even running from a 400MB/s Read 200MB/s Write SSD on 4 cores and 4GB of RAM 64-bit system. Probably need more RAM and an SSD to store the working photo files.

I don't think you can ever do EV comp in M as it is all fully manual.

What would there be to compensate?

Nothing.

You do the compensation yourself by looking at the meter and leaving 1/3, 1/2 of a stop up for down or whatever other value you want.

Manual is Manual because you are in full control.

Loghtroom is great, except when it is slow. Wouldn't use anything else though.

You want dead sharp shots? Weak AA filter like the K10D or K-r.

Make sure your lens is focusing correctly, do AF adjustments if required.

Am a little disappointed by the AA filter on the K-5. I think the K-20 and K-7 may be similar stronger filters.

A good lens makes a big difference IMHO. The sharpness achievable with my DA* lenses or even the 18-135 is really good. In fact I am rather impressed by the 18-135, a lot better than the 18-55 and 50-200 I had.