No, standard delivery. But they use Parcel Force who can be very efficient. Until it gets to the actual bloke who is doing the delivery.

One or two of them just can't be bothered.

I actually ordered something from Ffordes just after that happened. They still managed to get it to me the next day.

Or would have, if ParcelForce hadn't been their usual unhelpful selves...

Oops. Just noticed a slight error in the OP - it's the DA, not the ED. Sorry about that.

Still like it though.

Remember to make sure automatic de-fragmentation is turned off - SSDs don't like it, it shortens their lives, iirc.

OK, so I suffer from low level GAS. My latest attack resulted in a 50-200mm ED lens. Cheap, but the results with the K10D aren't too bad.


Buddleia by SteveH, on Flickr


Garden Spider by SteveH, on Flickr


Purple Flower by SteveH, on Flickr


Blue Chair by SteveH, on Flickr
My (sort of) Eggleston tribute!

Not a lot of post-processing; just some cropping, slight increase in brightness/contrast and sharpened a bit for resizing and Flickr.

One thing I like about it (apart from its apparent lack of CA and reasonable sharpness) is that it focuses to just over a metre and with not a lot of cropping you can get in close and throw the background well out of focus.

That makes sense. For the user anyway.

For the manufacturer, it probably makes more sense if the borked update renders the camera useless and you have to pay to have it fixed...

Cynical? Moi?

As you probably know, the reason I now have a Pentax again (a K10D) is that I collect 10MP cameras (see my sig). A couple of days ago, I decided to start updating the firmware in them, one or two had the original v1.0!

Now, for most of the procedure, it’s simple. Download the upgrade, expand it, put the .bin file on a formatted SD card, insert it in the camera and…

That’s where it gets interesting.

On my Nikons, when you load a memory card with the update on, an extra option (to update) appears under the Menu/Display Version option.

I’ve not got around to doing my Canon yet, but it apparently uses the same procedure as the Nikons.

On my Lumix L10, the Update Firmware option comes up when you press the Display images button.

And, as you all know, for the Pentax K10D, you turn it on while holding the Menu button down. This either tells you the version number or asks if you want to update it.

An weird exception is is the Olympus e-510. You have to download an app and connect the camera to the PC (or Mac) via a USB cable. But then Olympus are weird - I have a very old (which is probably an excuse) Olympus compact that has to be turned off before you can access the option to format the card.

There are no updates for my Sony and Sigma cameras.

This may sound heretical, but it strikes me that the Nikon/Canon method is the most sensible. Apart from the knee-jerk “it’s wrong ‘cause it’s Canikon” reply, can anyone think of a good reason for Pentax’s (and Lumix’s) weird alternatives? Apart from, possibly, they forgot to put it in the Menu system and didn't realise until it was too late?

It was turned off?

Ho hum. Ricoh/Pentax will carry on doing what they do - listening to and producing for their major market, the Far East, and maybe doing something for the loudest group of occidental Pentax users - which seems to be the DSLR old guard who have been demanding FF for years and, now they've got it, might shut up and stop bothering them.

I like them both, but I don't think the square format works, and would crop them both to 10x8 format.

The first one landscape. Full width, the train just above the third line.

The second portrait. Cropped on the right to remove nearly all of the tree, half as much blue behind the train, and the footbridge and train on or about the upper and lower thirds lines.

But, of course, that's only my opinion.


Well, you did ask for C&C...