Personally, I shoot RAW and tweak all that stuff in Lightroom and so all those extended bracketing things are pretty much irrelevant provided you haven't blown any of the highlights. With most flower photos I find myself upping saturation etc. and so if you were to do this in camera I would go for something like 0, +1 and +2.

Cheers, Kris.

Me too...

Errr, 18 months...

The USM motor on my DA* 50-135mm appears to have died. Has this happened to anyone else? I guess I'll have to send it off to Pentax for repair. That will probably be painful... Although I love the images on this lens the fact that part of the lenshood attachment snapped off and now the motor has died is not very impressive on an 18 month old lens.

Cheers, Kris.

Just a bit short of 800 quid. One went on ebay for a bit less than 400 last week. I was tempted to bid but didn't in the end.

By "the grip" I meant the one on the camera, not the extra battery grip.

Cheers, Kris.

I was very impressed with the K-7. The size was OK, the new grip shape felt comfortable and the LCD screen was bright and clear. I could read the in-viewfinder information much more easily than the K10D and the 100% viewfinder was clear and bright. The motordrive mode (whatever one calls that on a non-film camera) was quick. I liked the retro strap lugs. All-in-all I was very impressed and should I have an unexpected windfall I would happily buy one. I also had a nice glass of orange juice and some nibbles. I stuck a 60-250 on my K10D and was stunned how sharp it was, but I am not sure if it was the real deal or the pre-production model. I admired an old 135-600mm zoom (Mannesty's?) in the window. I managed to get out of the store without my CC taking a hit which was lucky as I discovered I had left my wallet at home when I went into Sainsbury's.

PS There is a 16-45 for sale in the classified ads section for the price you are looking for.

Chris. Have a look at paulyrichard's photos in the photos thread (there are quite a few). He uses the 16-45 quite a bit and you can see how good it is.

The DA* 16-50 is more than you want to pay and its principal advantage is the weather proofing.

Who is planning to go tomorrow and roughly when? I hope to get over there sometime during the day.

Kris.

Pentax have made, in the past, 300 and 400mm f2.8 prime lenses, but zooms have been limited to f4 and above.

Good glass often costs more than the camera body, is less prone to obsolescence and holds its value better.