[BigMackCam]

I was not aware that f22 could cause issues. I've always heard of avoiding wide open if possible. 90% of problems are with the 16-50 at the wider focal lengths. I will post some examples as soon as I can.

Daniel, another thought came to mind... If you've been shooting at f/22 with high shutter speeds (I believe you mentioned 1/250s and faster), it may well be that you're having to use higher ISO settings for those aperture and shutter speed combinations (again, we can tell this by looking at the EXIF data for any examples you can post). Higher ISO settings will result in more noise, and that can give the impression of unsharp images. Extremely high ISO settings will result in desaturation and inaccurate colours too. So this might be another aspect to consider...

[Just1MoreDave]

Is getting an exposure value from a light meter and grey card still a viable thing?

Maybe. The K-3's meter is really sophisticated, an 86000 point sensor by itself that looks at colors too. It should work. The main problem is when you want one element in the image to be perfectly exposed, and don't care about the rest. The camera's meter doesn't know exactly what you want, so it will take a guess and also try not to ruin the rest of the image. The card helps control that. You can have a portrait subject hold a card, meter the card, then your exposure is good for the important element.

With practice, you can probably figure out when your camera's meter will be fine and when it will get confused.

[mikesbike]

Info given here as to having SR off when on a tripod is essentially correct, except that when having slight movement problems due to high winds. In that case, SR could be an important asset.

The outcome from a RAW image does certainly depend on the post-processor's knowledge and abilities. It would probably be a good idea to shoot RAW + JPEG to give you a better idea as to what is going on.

Another thing, shooting slide film is still the standard for exposure accuracy, having the least influence from post-shooting processing. But when it comes to color accuracy, digital is potentially way ahead over any film. So when you ave a "look" in mind, that may not mean accuracy, but might mean what you've been used to with film. Also, though digital has the capacity to be more accurate, it can also be "programmed" to have a certain "look". This is where post-processing knowledge comes in when dealing with RAW files, and also the difference between cameras with their in-camera JPEG processing. The Pentax Custom Image settings are an advantage here.

There are other factors such as contrast, shadow detail, highlight rendering, etc that taken all together greatly contribute to the "look" you will wind up with, and how close it will be to the reality you perceive.

Another matter regarding the DA* 16-50mm f/2.8 lens, its edge-area performance is not so great for sharpness at wider apertures, though it is good in the central frame area. It is fine around f/5.6-f/9.5 or so.