It would be very interesting to know if they were both actually made in the same factory, be that either a Pentax plant or one working for Samsung...

"....I think the cameras are basically the same, made by pentax in the same factory, but just finished in adifferent (and sometimes not so different) livery..."

The plastic mouldings are NOT interchangeable as their profiles and details are subtly different,.........Is the GX-10 a pilot model for a new 'Samsung' factory....??

K10D and GX-10 are obviously 'cloned' from a common source but they are NOT identical either 'in the plastic' or in their software/firmware,....so, it would be quite feasible, or even likely, for the image qualities to differ in various ways.

I have tried asking what the exact relationship and differencies are on several sites including here but either nobody knows or they are not saying......

Whats needed are files from both cameras of the same scene with the same lens,...preferably RAW files.

In my view the whole raison d'etre of GX-10 is a touch strange.

Interesting topic,...

My undrstanding of the Pentax info re the 'SR' is that the sensor movement is quite small and is only intended to counteract the small hand movements present in purely hand-held use of the camera. Since panning with a moving subject is a fairly extreme movement it seems reasonable to assume that the 'SR' would be largely irelevant to the outcome.

All inage correction systems are, like depth of field calculation, entirely dependant on the size that the image will be reproduced at,....the bigger the 'print' the less effective the remedy,....or, the more remedy that is needed.

Essentially, there are NO names of any particular designers who had great vision where the SLR camera is concerned.

The Ihagee Company in Dresden were the first commercial operation to make a miniature SLR in any volume,...The 'Exacta' in 1936.

After WWII japanese companies started to put together elements of German cameras from before the war. Thus, the Leica layout was copied for both rangefinder AND for better SLR cameras. Leica launched it's first lever wind model, the M3, in 1954 and this layout of lever, shutter button and shutter dial all under the easy access of the right index finger and thumb was repeated across most japanese cameras in the next few years including the emerging and constantly improving, Asahi models.

So, the 35mm SLR is a mongrel,...a hybrid of convenience. like the humble diamond frame bicycle it is NOT a conceptualised design based on a particular insight of an individual such as Oscar Barnack.

The current obsession with the black plastic 'blob' style of DSLR,...being essentially the same old 35mm SLR with sensor instead of film and no straight edges or corners to be seen, owes it's appearance to the original work completed for the Canon Co., by Luigi Colani in the late 70's.

Colani's work was ground breaking, visionary and totally revolutionary. He saw hand cameras as smooth funtional sculpture which extended the human body into instinctive camera handling unhampered by the need to cycle the film in the camera, or turn the camera for a verticle shot etc. Unfortunately, his vision was not matched by the confidence of Canon who threw out most of his best ideas but kept the black plastic 'blob' which became a cheap outer for the same type of camera that Canon had been making for 30 years.

Because Canon had a distinct cost advantage with their plastic injection moulded 'blob' designs such as the T90, all the other makers were forced to make similar cameras,.....it's this camera which we largely see today in DSLR form,..an unimpressive mongrel with some very fancy fleas!!

Hopefully, one or other of the main makers will eventually have the courage to 'break the mould' and move on with a true digital camera designed from the ground up as a fully fledged digital imaging system, with all the features so glaringly missing from the current 'blobs', and the 'black plastic blob' will pass beyond the veil of history, where it should have been for some time.

Rumours on the web suggest that Canon may have struck out in a new direction with experimantal cameras now being tested by top US pro users. This camera is 22 mil pixels with a unitary 'system' body and half the weight and size of their current cameras. Styling is linear and angular rather than the 'blob' look.

The bad news for all current Canon users is that this new system will use a new lens mount and current users will yet again be disfranchised from their lens investment,........the third, non-continuous lens mount change by Canon in 30 years

http://theonlinephotographer.blogspot.com/

Interestin item on 'theOnlinePhotographer' site about Carl Weese testing the new DA 12-24 zoom,.....also stuff about the grip etc..

The item is down the page a bit now entitled 'same camera, two configurations'.

According to various sites on the web, Adobe launches the finalised first version of 'Lightroom' today, presumably in the USA first. There is an introductory price but eventually the normal retail price will be 299 US$/euro, so it looks like the usual £299 for us suckers!

I have tried hard to get my sad old brain around the 'mindless complexities' of 'lightroom' but as with most of Adobe's enigma wrapped arcane mysteries, I reached 'glaze over' quite quickly.....

So, expecting to soon be in need of a good RAW converter/editor which I might be able to afford both in terms of price and learning curve, I have been drawn to a product called, confusingly, 'Lightzone'.

Unlike the Adobe product, this is software which immediately appeals to me in that everything on the website and it's tutorials is easily understandable from a conventional photography viewpoint, especially for those of us who have been used to working by matching image dynamic range and contrast to that of our film stock.

Essentially, 'LightZone' is a very versatile, non-destructive image editor which works by being able to accurately map all/any tones or other areas for modification. The original file is unaltered so no 'save as' is used and the modifications are only added when the file is passed for printing etc. The alteration file is kept and can be used for other images or batches of images. Changes to contrast are particularly good in 'LZ' as individual tones of the image are visualy placed on a digital 'D logE' curve/step wedge, and then moved up/down.....vastly better than Adobe's 'curves' for serious phtotgraphers used to any version of 'Zone System'.

'LZ' is only about a hundred quid and is designed by a European rather than Adobe mindset. It seems to me to be intuitive and elegant where 'Lightroom' is crude and complicated.......does anyone here use 'LightZone', and how have you found it in use?

http://www.e-fotografija.si/templates/?a=679&z=1

An excellent review by a knowledgable and thoughtful reviewer who is clearly impressed although he repeatedly, and rather pointedly, describes K10 as an amateur camera.....I'm looking for at least some semi-pro qualities.

Actually, good though this review is, it made me a bit depressed (not difficult!) and I'm having second thoughts about aquiring a DSLR....the mindless complexity and sheer bullsh*t quotients are a bit daunting for me!!

I started my photographic adventure at the age of eleven with the proverbial 'Box Brownie' and I've always been used to cameras that have needed to earn my respect by doing what I want to do rather than the other way about.

Something tells me that the K10 is not the sort of camera to 'stay out of the way' while one works on the images.

I still have my first camera,..a kodak Box 'Brownie' IIA on which I started the great adventure that has lasted, on and off, for my whole life. I had to get thru quite a lot of very primitive cameras before I eventually got to a secondhand pentax S1a which my next door neighbour still uses 41 years later!!

The first camera from which I sold some pix was a folding Zeiss 532/12(?) which i also still have somewhere,.....While shooting during the funeral of Sir Winston Chuchill the little red window came adrift and got jambed between the camera back and the backing paper of the film much to my extreme dejection and anguish!....the pix were fine and were some of my first to be published.

This post could be a a very long one but I will just mention two of the many old junk cameras that I still have;....

The 'Lubitel II' has been mentioned,...I have one which was given to me in 'non-working' condition. The problem turned out to be the shutter blades coliding..!!! I disassembled the shutter and trimmed the damaged blades with a pair of nail scissors. This camera then went around the world with the son of a friend and laid the foundations of his becoming a very serious photographer. The camera was returned to me and then given again to a begining photographer for her college photo course. The camera is now back with me yet again some twenty years after the nail scissors treatment and presently waiting for another user......

I still have the fully working kodak 'Autographic IIA' in the old '230' giant rollfilm size which my grandfather used in India to secretly photograph a widow throwing herself onto her husbands funeral pyre although this was illegal undr British rule at the time. In 1917 the camera was sent back to England with a ring hidden inside for my grandmother. however the ship was torpedoed by a German submarine when it reached the English Channel and the camera and other packages were all lost. In 1925 my grandmother got a message that the cargo had been salvaged and her package was now on it's way to her,..which it soon was.

I was hoping to go to the 2007 'focus' show to see all of the current/new Pentax lens range. However, having learned the hard way with 'Focus' to ALWAYS look at the website before travelling expectantly to see particular products, I now note that Pentax is not listed among the exhibitors as yet....

Does anyone know if pentax will make a showing, or are they yet another of the growing list of big name photo companies to ignore "Europes number one Photo Industry Event"

Three years ago I had an excellent trip up from London and got to the NEC in an hour and a half,.....only to join a two hour queue to park as there turned out to be 6 exhibitions happening simultaneously and the local radio reported that I was but one of 10,000 cars trying to get in!!!!!

Once I did gain entry, after filling in a form which required me to state any birth marks my grandmother had, I found that none of the 6 products I was hoping to see were even represented at the show!!!

I have not been to 'Focus' since.

Electrical triggering of remote cameras and even remote panning etc is easier an dcheaper now than ever before due to the technology being cheaply available off the shelf in various guises

There are many sites on the web here is just one;

http://www.camerahacker.com/directory/Hacks.shtml

Personally, for use in the garden a 'steam age' pneumatic release as mentioned is as good/cheap/simple/easy/convenient/reliable/quick/etc as it gets.....