Well, jeff four zeroes, engaging in personal attacks is really going to get you support for your daft conspiracy theories. Where are your pictures, by the way, before you criticise anyone else's?

Why not go somewhere else? I don't think you are winning many friends here, and I don't think you will be missed.

I find it a bit strange that a new member's first post is critical of the competitions, one of which he has yet to enter? Or is this an existing member logging in under a new name so they can complain anonymously?

Whatever your reasons, I don't see why someone picking the photo of the person who picked his own picture as a winner is unfair: the judge is free to choose whatever picture they like. This weeks winner is a worthy one, in my opinion. Where was your entry, Geoff?

Number 3 is great: number 2 seems to have disappeared.

I've just done a comparison of my Pentax-A smc 50mm 1.4 versus the 18-55 WR kit lens, the results are quite interesting. 100% crops, no sharpening applied on any of the pics, they are jpegs straight out of the camera.

At f5.6, 50mm on the left side, 18-55 on the right





At f8, once again the 50mm on the left, 18-55 on the right.


Not a lot to choose between them?




Whoops, forgot to mention, the kit lens was set at 50mm for these shots, and Bridge showed focal lenth as 50mm.

I have not done any specific tests, but I have noticed that the pictures I have taken with the kit lens seem to generally be sharper than the ones taken with the 50mm. I will try and do a proper comparison this weekend. There is of course always the possibility that I don't have a particularly good example of this lens.

Of course, the one advantage the 50mm has (apart from low light) is for taking pictures with shallow depth of field at wider apertures which the kit lens can't reach. Overall, though, I have been a bit disappointed with it, especially wide open.

i have found the 18-55 WR kit lens is sharper than my Pentax-A smc 50mm 1.4 at all apertures save the ones the kit lens cant reach of course. now I only use the prime in low light.

I think if it were my pic I would have a go at converting all of it to mono (including the writing on the window),except for the reflection of the sky in the window, which I would leave in colour...it would make the wistful looks on the statues' faces even more poignant.

I would also crop a little off the left hand side, losing the window frame and the partial head, and crop the dark rectangle off the top.

Nice image by the way!!!

Soberano seems a bizarre name for an alcoholic beverage: I do like a good brandy though.

To add to everyones medical woes, I have just been diagnosed as having arthritis in my left shoulder.

Getting old is not for for wusses.

The composition of number 1 is better IMHO, the second one perhaps has the flower too central, although I agree with Gareth about the detail in number 2.

Nice conversion, I think it might look better cropped at the top to just above where the number 7000 is and from the left to just behind the rail.