I thought you were referring to the monsoon which has caused so much damage in Pakistan this year

Thanks for the comments! It's actually fairly rare to get so lucky with clouds and light at the same time. It was after avoiding storms using the weather radar for hours in the dark that finally, when the sun came up, we had these views, rather than flashes of lightning and a picture on the radar. I hope one day (before I retire) some company (hopefully Pentax?) will produce a camera capable of photographing clouds lit up by lightning!.

I've just looked through this thread for the first time and there are a lot of really good shots here....I am not going to pick any particular ones (though there a few stand-outs among them) as all of you have collectively put together an incredible visual display of this seemingly very bizarre weekend. I'd never heard of Steam Punks until I saw pictures of them on this site from the last Goth Weekend meet.

I think you should all get together and produce a book (Blurb or something similar) about this event. I'm sure some of you can write....

I also hope one day I get to join you all on a future excursion...

Great set Andrew, Pock-marked is my favourite, I really like the angle, but they are all up to your standard as a master of delapidated detail Life-force comes a close second for me.
Great work!

I like number 2, but the third one is my pick. I love the splash of autumn colour and the way the background almost fades to mono.

I've been working a lot recently, and consequently not very active either here or with my camera due to a lot of nights working. However, I came across these one morning recently on the way to Australia. The flight was re-routed to the north due to the erupting volcano in the Phillipines.
All taken just south of Java in the western Timor Sea on a K7 and Sigma 18-250mm.

C+C welcome as always.

Storm Spawn




Nimbus Rising




South of Java

Great shots especially the monkey (lemur?) in the rain which is National Geographic quality IMHO

It sounds like the contacts on the camera are faulty. Since you've been given a dud camera as a replacement for a previous dud I would be tempted to contact Pentax directly with copies of all the documentation from this saga and threaten them with legal action unless they send you a brand new camera.

I am having problems with Auto White Balance on my K7, but only on particular shots. Generally it is spot on, coping with tungsten, sun, shade, night shots etc. However, all the aerial pictures I take seem to be an average of 1500K out, on the cool side, ie it takes them at 5000K and I have to adjust it afterwards to between 6500 to 6800K. Anyone any idea why it is doing this? I have been wondering if it has trouble coping with the colour blue. Is there some way of calibrating the camera each time I take pictures, as the discrepancy is not consistent? I had an Olympus E520 which was always spot on with aerial shots.

Any input appreciated.

I really like 3 and 5.