A power transmitter (101) comprises a driver (201) generating a drive signal for an output resonance circuit comprising transmitter coil (103) generating a power transfer signal. A resonance detector (307) determines a coupled resonance frequency for the output resonance circuit during where the coupled resonance frequency is a resonance frequency for the output resonance circuit for the transmitter coil (103) being coupled to a receiver coil (107) which is part of a power transfer input resonance circuit of the power receiver (105). The input resonance circuit has a quality factor of no less than ten. An estimation circuit (309) determines a coupling factor estimate for the coupling between the transmitter coil (103) and the receiver coil (107) in response to the first effective resonance frequency and possibly a non-coupled resonance frequency of the output resonance circuit or the input resonance circuit. An adapter (311) sets an operating parameter in response to the coupling factor estimate.