".......Whenever I've used a lens that has compromises I kick myself for not taking a better one..."

My sentiments entirely!

Matt, I noticed you mentioned a 24-90 in your post. Could you tell me a bit more about it please?

The 18-55 is compact, cheap and available,..and did I mention that it is cheap?......

However, I learned long ago that cheap lenses are invariably false ecomomy.

As John so succinctly points out, peoples expectations and 'performance envelopes' are very different and not easy to judge. Plenty of accounts on the web suggest that the 18-55 is perfectly adequate for the largest prints once stopped down a 'coupla'clicks'. However, others plainly claim that the thing is hardly better than a piece of milk bottle and is only intended to be a sort of dual purpose body cap.....

Quite apart from the fact that there is often a big variation between different samples of the same 'inexpensive' lens because quality control and testing are usually minimal.

Sandalholme,...thank you for your reply about Sigma 17-70, this is just the kind of info i was hoping for. you clearly like this lens but what size are you printing at please?

Mongoose,..thank you for your reply, yes i have taken the crop factor into accounbt. The 16-50 looks like a great lens which would fullfill my needs almost exactly however, it is not here yet and is likely to cost more than the k10 itself for the foreseeable future. The 16-45 f4 is a nice lens which i was looking at yesterday afternoon. however, i would much prefer a f2.8 lens because although I will likely not use f2.8 very often, it means a much better v/f image for manual or tricky auto focussing,..bearing in mind that my eyes are not getting any younger and that we live in N. Europe rather than somewhere that is always sunny.

I have never really used a zoom lens successfully. My wife has forced me to take shots with her Canon EOS and 75-300 from time to time but I have never amnaged to make an image which satisfies me,...essentially, i just don't like the look of the, admittedly high st. processed, 6x4's.

If, as now seems likely, I do go the K10 route, I will probably get a short zoom as a general purpose lens. I hope to get approx 20-60f2.8. Ideally, any resulting images that satisfy my eye should be able to be printed at A3. The smallest prints will be A4. If at all possible I hope to print at A2 as I now have access to that size for selected shots and special work.

I am not interested in the Pentax 16-50f2.8 as it is not yet here and will be a 'rip off' item for the foreseeable future costing the same as the camera itself.

I have been looking at Sigma 24-60f2.8 EX DG, also, 17-70 f2.8 and 18-50 f2.8 EX. however, there seems to be some doubt about the sharness of EX zooms on the web......

Any help or pointers would be most welcome.

".......Matt explains why the 1.5 rule does not apply to wide angle lenses...."

Roger, Matt is refering to fisheye wides, not rectilinear lenses....

I can absolutely asure you that a 24mm on DSLR (APS-C) will give the same angle of view to a 35mm (37mm to nearest digit) lens on a 35mm film camera.

Thank you for your reply,

Yes, I do know about the Sigma 30mm f1.4. However, on DSLR's this would equate to 45mm, or 'standard lens' view which is probably my least used lens type with other formats although I DO use the 80mm with 6x6 sometimes.

I find it interesting that there is such a lack of fast 24mm lenses for DSLR as this equates to 35mm in 35mmfilm cameras and that was always a very important focal length,.....if I remember correctly Leica were making no fewer than five 35mm lenses at one time and 35mm was one of the 3 viewfinder frames built into the Leica r/f cameras starting with the M2.....

Even stranger, Nikon used to make a 24mm f2 lens but there seems to have not been any attempt to re-launch it for their DSLR range.

For these (and other) reasons I wonder if makers know that sensor size will soon change back to F/F or near F/F because they certainly seem to have been dragging their collective feet with wide primes for APS-C sensor cameras.

My purchase of K10 looks to be closer now. However, I was uder the impression that there were/are lots of lens choices for pentax 'k' mount as the advertising implies.

In reality when looking for lenses with a real view to actually using and aquiring them there appear to be VERY few prime lenses in the most useful focal lengths,.....but, I may have this completely wrong so I am wondring if anyone here can give me some good pointers or advice.

If I have it right, pentax appear to not be making ANY prime lenses in the short lengths which are actually available....?

I will need a good moderate wide with f2 max aperture and a good short tele with f2 or better. The Pentax 50mm in f1.7 and f1.4 are fairly common on ebay as is 28mm2.8 but the 24mm seems very rare/uncommon.

I don't use 35mm but when I did my most used lens was the 35mm f2. In 6x6 Iam mostly using the 'standard' 80mm and 50mm. In 4x5 I use the 90mm mostly,..about three quarters of exposures with most of the other quarter being 210mm

As far as I can see the only primes that I can buy new for a k10 right now are the Sigma 20mm f1.8 (30mm equiv.F/F) and Sigma 24mmf1.8 (36mm equiv. so apparently ideal for me)

I'm not interested in any lenses in the pipeline as these are not actually available and will be exorbitantly priced for the foreseeable.

Any intelligent chat about this would be greatly appreciated.

'Photo*ist'

I'm in the same situation as you,...seriously tempted by the K10D but nervous about aquiring a 'consumer durable' as a photographic tool...

This review is from a UK team and seems sensible and well balanced;

http://www.cameralabs.com/reviews/PentaxK10D/index.shtml

The section on the dust removal system is interesting, as is the rest of the quite detailed review. My interpretation is that this part of the camera at least is not likely to spring any nasty surprises as it would appear to be well thought out and, unlike some of the mindless complexity, it actually would appear to work!

Just a pity that the all important 'SR' comes over with less facility than in other more superficial reviews....

Interesting and curious how the format of all the K10D images has been reduced to the proportions of the '67' medium format model....

".........I have my tripod but how do I take these seperate readings without moving the the camera ..."

Take a reading from both key areas then use manual 'mode' to make both exposures.

http://www.popphoto.com/howto/3038/how-to-create-high-dynamic-range-images.html

this might be interesting to look at...