Guardian Angel

Very nice Bernhard. I think, if anything, you may have too much going on with your kit. I don't know that the flash has added much, especially with the polarizer. I'd be inclined to try it again with, at most, the on-board flash for a bit of fill light, and without the polarizer. Another thing to remember is that the viewfinder doesn't show the whole of what the sensor captures. So try moving things right to the edge of the viewfinder and you should still have a small cushion to keep your subject in-frame. I still have to remind myself that!

Can't wait to see more!

The flash was on its lowest setting and, because this area is in a very dark part of the area, was only to brighten up the figure. The light reflections you can see is where the sun can come through the overhanging tree. Also, it seems that in the original size the picture is not so dark (in particular the figure) and I will bear this in mind for my next post tomorrow. As for the filter, the 'paperweight' seems to be a bit sharper and not so soft as if I take the picture without the filter.
Over the next few days I will get my flicker account upgraded (once I figure out how to protect my pictures from everyone downloading them and using them for god knows what, and to take off the pictures that should have gone a year ago that was only for someone that wanted to see the 'Apache' Chilli Plant and tell me what was wrong with it and some others in my garden) but I will post more pictures on there then so you will be able to see the difference in the pictures taken just with different settings.
Sadly I can post only one picture here and I seem to have chosen the wrong one (the darker one) as in my eye it seemed to add to the atmosphere that I tried to create. My apologies for that.
And to be honest, with f16 I should have had a sharp foreground as well but the lens is just such a big let-down that I have seen of a Pentax lens.
Anyway one picture a day it will be on here from now on till they stop me or unless I am away (Usually Hospital, Doctors and all the other not so pleasant parts in life that come with a bad injury that gets worse whilst the years go by). Really I should not grumble, there are people much worse off then me and I start again what I was missing for years if not even longer, PHOTOGRAPHY.
Any comments and critiques are always welcome no matter how harsh as I only can learn from them and I only can try to bring across of where I wanted to go with the picture, but this is by no means a try of better something that obviously has its faults.
By now you also learned another thing of mine (which even annoys me from time to time but I can not help it as English is my second language). I take the LONG WAY ROUND explaining things. I do apologise for that.
Kind regards
SmutjeUK