Jann, you're one of my favorite people here so if I kick your butt, I promise that it's only in fun.
I'll take a look at that link but I'm generally pretty skeptical any time any of these "consumer reports"-style places ventures outside of toasters and ironing boards (and even then I don't always agree!)
Image quality on today's DSLRs really comes down to the lens, since Nikon/Pentax/Sony use the same sensor and it's pretty comparable in quality to the Canon one (and if you shoot raw, then the camera software doesn't matter much, either), and if anything, the general consensus seems to be that Canon has the worst lenses in the low-buck field - maybe trying to encourage people to buy the premium stuff! Certainly, their kit lens is unloved in any mention I've seen.
Here is an interesting article from Luminous Landscape that mentions Pentax lenses...
"Pentax, one of the great cameramaking concerns of the past half century, was the leading SLR manufacturer of the 1960s but it got caught remaining too loyal to an obsolete lensmount (M42 or "Pentax" screwmount) and it never learned Nikon's canny trick of bending over backwards to appeal to pros as a loss-leading sales strategy (and a strategy Canon was later to use against Nikon itself. Live by the sword). So photographers have forgotten that Pentax screwmount lenses gorgeously crafted, smooth-focusing, no-holds-barred designs were once revered by photographers as being among the best ever made. Asahi, in the days of the Spotmatic, ran neck-and-neck with Zeiss as the world's leading lensmaker. Who remembers? Now, the talk is all Leica and Nikon and, more lately, Canon."
"It's got to be Nikon or Canon, right? Each of these Goliaths, with their vast lens lines and cost-no object fast lenses and zooms, have won the battle of public opinion going away. So here's a shocker. The real answer may be Zeiss and Pentax! Zeiss, with the jewel-like little G lenses for the Contax G1 and G2, and Pentax with its little-heralded but lovely Limiteds."
"What many photographers aren't aware of is that Pentax still also makes some of the best SLR lenses on the planet. For pure picture quality, taking bokeh into account, my considered opinion is that the Pentax 50mm f/1.4 is the best fast fifty (and I say that having carefully tested damn near everything out there). The FA 24mm f/2 is certainly one of the best 24mm AF lenses going. And if you were to directly compare the Leica 80mm Summilux-R, the Zeiss Contax 85mm f/1.4, the AF-Nikkor 85mm f/1.4, and the Pentax SMC-FA 85mm f/1.4, it would be very clear to you that the latter lens absolutely belongs in the company of the former three. For portraiture, it might even edge the others out.
Yet the very best AF SLR lenses made today are the Pentax Limiteds. There are only three, and they have focal lengths apparently chosen by means of occultish numerology: there's a 31mm f/1.8 wide, a 43mm f/1.9 "true" normal, and a 77mm f/1.8 short tele. All three are made of metal (imagine that), focus manually more than passably well, and are of an size and weight that doesn't constantly penalize you, whether you're lugging them around or holding them up to your eye on a camera. They have beautiful matching metal lens hoods and a feel of quality that puts them above virtually all other AF lenses.
Let's not forget Pentax's 645 autofocus lenses which are also superb Ed."
"...I submit that little has changed since the days of Kennedy and Kent State, Barbie and the Beatles, when "the Pentax" was the best-selling SLR there was and Zeiss was the world's most prestigious cameramaker. Each optical house may be a stately shadow of its former self in the minds of 35mm photographers today, and lens quality may not matter any more anyway Canon and Nikon are awfully darned good, and nobody makes any dogs, and it's all going digital anyway. But when it comes to the best autofocus lenses in the world, whether for a viewfinder camera or SLRs, it's still Zeiss and Pentax, baby, same as the old days."
There's also an article there just
singing the praises of the Pentax 50mm... also including this nugget:
"All these (Pentax 50mm) lenses are classic Planar designs, as are more or less every fast 50mm except for the Leica M lens, which is an idiosyncratic design unique to Leica; but where most makers have economized by making the surfaces between the fourth and fifth elements flat, Pentax has always stuck with the original design and used cemented spherical surfaces there. Aside from being more expensive to manufacture, this results in a lens that is slightly less sharp at infinity in the plane of focus, but that has better off-axis aberration correction and thus, better bokeh or blur."
Also, "Early Pentax multicoating was superior to every company's except Zeiss's, which equalled it, and even today Pentax has better lens coatings than, say, Nikon or Olympus."
Does any of this make the C/N (or Sony or Olympus) anything less than great cameras? Of course not. But optically, Pentax has nothing to apologize for when it comes to lenses.
I needed a mental break from accounting 
The auditors finally left on Friday and yesterday we closed the books on January. I have been feeling very 
.
) and the nikon was above my budget so that's why i went with the canon( plus i had some canon film stuff)...really i think what is important is what each is happy with and was more just stirring the pot on the other thread. no harm done i hope??
I was around for most of the '70s, though people often take me for older due to interests in old music, old cars, old TV shows (huge Jack Benny fan), old movies (Marx Bros, big surprise, and Buster Keaton, and many others), etc, etc. But that's besides the point.
anyone?
