K-5 traveling in Spain

I took my K-5 on a trip through Spain over the last two weeks. I had the 18-135 on. I didn't bother taking any other lens.

What an excellent camera for travel! It is not particularly heavy and its very well balanced so its quite easy to carry, hold and use. The dynamic range is superb and its low light capability made photographing the inside of the Alhambra, Alcazaba or the various Alcazars very easy to do. Little noise at the ISO's I shot - indoors I didn't go beyond 3200 generally only a couple of times at 6400. Generally you can't use flash so a good high iso camera is a good thing. If I had a wider, faster lens I would have been all set. Maybe that is the next one I'll try for - maybe the Pentax 14mm f2.8 or Sigma 10-20 f3.5. It rained a couple of times and it was actually - honest to pete - snowing in Segovia! Other people we met there while freezing collectively called the town Snowgovia. No worries - I still took pictures while the Canon and Nikon users were nowhere around.

I found the 18-135 is a very good travel lens. Easily up to what I asked of it. In particular I found landscape shots were fine with this lens. All in all a very good vacation zoom.

Speaking of Canon and Nikon - there were many SLR's and I'd say about 90% were Nikon or Canon entry level (looked like 3000 or 5000 types or Rebels) with the kits lens on (looked like the 18-55 was the most prevalent) A few of the Japanese tourists had Olympus EPxx cameras but they were fairly rare. I saw what looked like some D300s/D700s (different due to silhouette and lens mounted) and a couple of D3's and one other Pentax - another K5 a man from Germany was using in Gibralter(my wife and I spent a day there). Interestingly I saw many point and shoots, some iPhones but otherwise very few cell phone cameras - surprised me too - but it might just be the time of the year - not yet the deluge of tourist season. I also saw a number of people holding tablets out (like the iPad) and taking pictures. Seeing them do this in a church like the Mezquita-Catedral in Cordoba had me thinking they like were modern day monks holding tablets out as if in prayer searching for some blessing from something. Funny - like something out of Monty Python.

As an aside I just read the review of the OMD by DPReview. Not going to unseat the K5 in my opinion - its novelty is that its small. Not much else to recommend it over the K5(again in my opinion). As to small - I don't find the K5 all that heavy or large - certainly not enough to forgo its great attributes.

I shot raw exclusively. I'll post a few later.