Pentax USA announced today that the Pentax K-30 DSLR is now going to be available in 14 additional colors in the US, for a total of 17 available colors.  Both shiny "Crystal" and matte "Silky" finishes will now be available for the following colors:

• Bordeaux
• Green
• Red
• Silver
• Yellow
• Orange
• Blue ("Crystal" was previously available)
• White ("Crystal" was previously available)
• Black ("Silky" only)

These color options will be available from the Pentax Web Store for $799.95, bundled with the DA L 18-55mm kit lens.  The standard black, white, and blue colors will continue to be available from authorized retailers for $584 with no lens or $619 with the kit lens.

For more information about the weather-sealed, upper-entry level Pentax K-30, please take a look at our Pentax K-30 review.

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In order to better reflect the outdoor nature of Pentax digital cameras and DSLRs, we would like to announce that effective immediately, PentaxForums.com will be adapting a new "umbrella" logo, pictured above.  This is in part to celebrate the fact that all current Pentax DSLRs, namely the Pentax K-5 II, K-30, and 645D, are fully weather-sealed and thus ready to shoot anywhere, rain or shine!

Together with the new logo will also be adopding a new slogan, which reads "we've got you covered". This phrase fully embodies the spirit of our forum.  Since we launched the site in 2006, our mission has been to provide the ultimate community for Pentax beginners and old-timers alike.

Pentax K-30 owners: try this at home!

In 2011, in order to offer extra help to beginners, we launched our Pentax Camera Help Central, which includes the Beginner's Corner Q&A and General Technical Troubleshooting sub-forums.  Virtually no questions are ever ignored in these two forums, and of the 7,500 threads that have been posted, less than 1.5% are left unanswered. Furthermore, each question gets an average of ten replies.

That same year we also launched dedicated sub-forums for current Pentax camera models, and these sub-forums are now among the busiest sections of the forum, with hundreds of new posts being submitted each day.  We currently feature sub-forums for the Pentax K-5/II/IIs, Pentax K-30, Pentax K-r, Pentax Q, and Pentax K-01.

While we think we're already doing a very good job of being accomodating for just about any type of photographer, if there's anything we can change to do an even better job of "having you covered", we welcome any suggestions in our site suggestions forum!

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The official PentaxForums.com T-shirts for 2013 are finally here!  Use the order form below to get your orders in, or read on for more details about the shirts!  All orders will be processed by forum member SlickYamaha, and if you wish to order more than 2 shirts, please contact him via PM for bulk pricing.

If you order two or more shirts, you will get free Marketplace access on our forum. $5 of each shirt sale will be donated to the forum.

All shirts are made of high-quality material by Gildan.  This year, you have three fantastic designs to choose from, all designed by our forum members:

2013 T-Shirt Order Form

Unfortunately, we are no longer accepting additional shirt orders. Stay tuned for our 2014 shirt next year!

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Today we're happy to present our in-depth review of Pentax's longest, most expensive, and most recent lens: the HD Pentax 560mm ED AW.  Even though this lens currently retails for just under $7000, we find it to deliver excellent image quality and a host of great features, and thus it would be a great choice for wildlife or bird photographers. 

Click here to continue to the Pentax 560mm review to learn more!

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Pentax has just released a new v1.11 firmware update for the Pentax Q.  This update introduces the same stability and autofocus improvements that were included in firmware version 1.01 for the newer Q10.

Download firmware v1.11 for the Pentax Q, and read on for installation instructions.

Please note: your camera settings will be reset after performing this upgrade.

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"Mystery Forest"

We're happy to announce the winners of our February, 2013 "Bokeh" photo contest! With over 280 eligible submissions, this was our largest contest to date! In first place was forum member hubetek, who captured the photo "Mystery Forest" (pictured above) with his Pentax K20D.

Our runners-up were forum members ohce in second place with "Green" (left) and loco in third place with "Chess Ghosts" (right). Click on any photo for a larger version!

"Green"	"Chess Ghosts"

We'd congratulate the winners one more time!  Stay tuned to our homapage for the "making of" the winning photo. Also, don't miss our March "Dreams" photo contest, which features the same great prizes from B&H and Red River Paper!

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We recently stumbled over what looks like the ultimate storage solution at our local electronics store: the Buffalo MiniStation Extreme (pictured below).

We were looking for a rugged solution that would allow us to bring several years worth of images with us when we travel. This 1 TB ruggedized hard disk from Buffalo was the answer and we now have a few more on order. This drive supports USB 2.0 as well as USB 3.0, and we have experienced transfer rates exceeding 50 MB/s from our Dell desktop computer to this drive when using USB 3.0. Even with USB 2.0 this is the fastest drive we have experienced.

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The time has come for us to select the design to use for the 2013 PentaxForums.com T-shirt!

We launched a design contest a couple of weeks ago, and we now have 99 user-submitted designs which could potentially be used for the shirt.  Please help us out by voting for your favorite designs!

The poll will close on or just before April 1st, and at that point, the staff will name one of the top 10 shirts the winner!  The shirts will go on sale shortly thereafter, and the author of the design will receive a Pentax 70mm lens.  Good luck to all who entered the contest!

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