My first attempts

This is all a bit different to my Canon Ixus 430

Anyway, a few of my first attempts with the K10D and Tamron 24-135mm.

I suppose you want us to be brutally honest

.....the flower shots are a bit "ordinary" and the pillar on the Pagoda isn't vertical in the third shot, lighting is also a bit harsh, nay too harsh.

But dont worry about it, I've been snapping for over 25years and still take stuff like this, many of the users of this forum probably do too if their honest about it just keep snapping and posting and you'll eventually get to the stage I'm at..........1 decent image out of 250

It isnt all bad news though because I love the dog, thats the dog not the pic

AHEM! sorry I couldn't resist that. Seriously, I really love the Pic of the dog. nitpicking I dont think its 100% sharp and youv'e clipped the dogs right ear but who cares, its just about positioned right in the frame and you've also filled the frame which is also a good point.

As part of the learning curve I think all budding photographers should be allowed to access the image banks of those that have been at it a long time, one look through my folders and you'd never get discouraged

One other point, DONT think these are rubbish pics and delete them, they serve as a comparison for the next batch you take.

Sorry just noted your location of course the lights harsh, you get ALL the sun, even OUR share

I really didn't expect anything other than brutal honesty from this forum

I realise they are all a bit ordinary although just getting something in focus is a bonus for me (even with AF), but I will say a couple of things in my defense.

1. The pagoda isn't vertical anyway, its next door and falling down.
2. I did the dog soft on purpose .. that is my favourite pic by a mile.
3. As you realised, not a lot can do about the lighting .. well I supose there probably is in photographic terms but at the moment I wouldn't have an idea of what to do.

At least I didn't walk away from the monitor in tears after your comments, which is a bonus.

I should have added more about shooting in hot sunny climes, here in the UK the general rule of thumb is not to take photographs between 10am and 3pm, during the summer that is. the sun is far too high in the sky and way too bright (occasionally ) I suppose you could extend those times for 1-2 hours in Spain. I should add that this old guideline harks back to the days of film, digital is a little more forgiving with high contrast but its still a good idea to stick with the rule.

Unfortunately we cant always work around these times and have to do the best we can, if your keen on shooting flowers then try concentrating on just a few blooms or even single flowers, this will also allow you to get close and use yourself to put the subject in the shade, or better still get someone else to provide the shade, there will still be plenty of light reaching the subject but it will be more evenly distributed, the colours will be more saturated and less bleached out. Dont forget to adjust the white balance setting for shade, or even better still leave it on AWB untill your more familiar with the camera.

Cheers for the tips.

Should I be shooting in Raw or Jpeg though, these were 6 megapixel jpegs just run through Corel Paint shop pro photo (quickfix)

No doubt most will say shoot RAW but I would say stick to JPEG until you know your camera better then start experimenting with RAW.

I too love the dog picture, and the dog! As for the others you are just trying to make us Northern European residents jealous aren't you?

Most people tend to recommend RAW, since it's sometimes possible to extract more detail from a RAW file than the corresponding JPEG. However, to achieve this requires care with the exposure, and sufficient editing technique (and software, of course) to take advantage of it. For most purposes there's nothing wrong with JPEG.

However, if you're going to use JPEG, there's no advantage at all in using anything less than the K10D's full 10 MP.

SD cards are so cheap these days that there's just no point.

TBH I don't really see the point in shooting JPG.

Even just Pentax Lab gives so much more in the way of options than JPG. Also, you're learning, theres a lot of stuff to learn about apertures, shutter speeds, lighting etc etc. You don't want to be adding unnecessarily to the things you have to think about in the field.

Shoot JPG and you need to be right first time, changing white ballance/tone etc later is difficult

Shoot RAW and you can ignore all that digital nonsense while you're in the field and just concentrate on getting the exposure and the composition right. White ballance and tone settings can be dealt with at your lesure when you get home.

Whichever you choose, there really is no good reason to shoot less than 10MP maximum quality. To quote the signature of a great photographer on another forum
"memory is cheap but memories are priceless"

I've never understood this.

Why is it any more difficult to use the WB and other tools with a JPG than it is with a RAW?

Once you've got the picture into whatever editing app you're using, there's no difference that I can see.

I know that with Photoshop, for instance, you can do quite a bit of that in Adobe Camera Raw, before opening the image in PS itself, but I haven't yet seen any distinct advantage of this.

the advantage is simple. To change the colour temperature in Pentax lab all you have to do is grab a slider and pull. Perhaps it's just because I don't have full photoshop, but I've never seen white ballance adjustment in a photo editor that comes even close to being as easy as doing it in a RAW converter.

For slight adjustments it's no biggie, but you try changing a shot from tungsten ballance to daylight in JPG.

Ok, thanks all.
I have just this minute had a friend walk in from the UK who bought my 8 gig sdhc card that I ordered from play.com so I will stick the settings on 10mp Jpeg + Raw and then I can play with both formats.

That's some friend! How long did it take him?

Dan

It's possible to do more with RAWs than JPEGs before loosing quality, and to a finer standard. I don't find it much of an issue for slight white balance adjustments, but do particularly with tone and sharpening.

With RAW there is far more information to work with, that also hasn't already been spoilt by the camera's conversion to JPEG and sharpening.

when you want to do drastic changes....you have more detial in the file to play with.
with raw you get to decide what data to keep and what to trash.
with jpeg you only got what the camera didn't already throw out to work with.
here's an image I was playing with (nothing too fancy, just foolin' around):
before:


after:


sometimes a snapshot, that might get tossed, comes in handy for another project.
had I shot that in jpeg, this shot wouldn't likely work so well as it'd be blocky, full of artifacts and color banding, when I was done altering it.
now I got to straighten up the pillars, add a sweeping motion blur and some fog, then cut out the area behind the doors and drop in a blue moonlight cemetary shot...but no hurry...I got till October to finish this one!