A payment is always fairly easy to track, there is a record of it there is the implicit reassurance that not only have you sent the money but the other person has received it.

With sending an item this is not the case. You can make sure you have sent it but if they have received it is a whole different issue.

Hm Lloyds has never failed me on Faster Payments so far. If the amount is highish and the recipient new they present a code on the screen and then I receive a call on my mobile to authorise the payment by giving the code but the faster payment still happens. A little bit of hassle for a bit of security for a lot of convenience. I am ok with that.

Disclaimer - not really endorsing Lloyds, they are rubbish in all sorts of other ways!

Thought so and thought the Tokina was not a bad lens. Course when you can get the Tamron which is excellent apart from construction for less than half price the choice for most people is clear but still.

If it is anywhere near as good as my Nikon fit one you will be one very happy guy.

BTW what is all the deal with the not so good rep of the 16-50? Is it not the same design as the Tokina 16-50?

Do you believe you will really need so much reach? You have the K-5 which provides excellent IQ so could you not say get something shorter and then if you need to make a tighter crop of your subject do exactly that in PP?

I am quite fit but small and find it a huge problem having to carry about massive zooms. As I said before a panckae for the normal stuff and a small medium telephoto or even prime and you are sorted!

Tamron, non-VC BF/FF you can sort out with AF adjustments in your K-5. Two of my four lenses are having ff/bf problems and they are not Tamrons....

I have the Tamron on the Nikon mount, excellent lens. Yes it does not feel as well built as the Nikon equivalent heck it does not feel as well built as the 18-55 Pentax one but it is really sharp and nice lens. On the D40 it was slightly slow to AF as well, with a D7000 it was much better. So maybe with the K-5 though noisy it will be fast enough.

Mark got the P/C on the spot I think.

BTW no tightness on mine.

Take the 70-300 with you and don't take it out just pack it and use it only when needed. For walkaround get a 21mm/40mm or if you are after really cheap and compact the 18-55

I don't do the ebay thing but 21mm for 250... tastyyyy

Second hand K-7s are around the 400-450 mark I think still if you don't need the weather sealing and the second scroll go for the K-r.

A bit OT but it isn't quite fair to compare a fairly long and inexpensive for a full frame lens with Pentax's two top of the range lenses. To get a feel of the comparative speeds you would need to try something like a 70-200 VR, 17-55 or even some of Sigma's HSM offerings. They are quite a bit faster than at least the 50-135.