These are excellent, they could all be straight out of a glossy magazine. I especially like the third shot, beautifully crafted.

Your poll missed out "Both" as a choice....

I used to post quite regularly in the gallery until the one upload per day was removed for paid-up members. Now there's often lots of very similar posts from the same user: at the moment there are 5 pictures of people in lycra on bikes by one member. Not that I've got anything particular against lycra or bikes mind. One image at a time would do though......I tend to give critique less as well; which bike picture should I critique? All of them? So now I only tend to comment on images in the gallery that I like.

Perhaps the whole gallery could do with a re-design as well, so that there are more than 16 thumbnails prrr page, and the viewer doesn't have to keep loading new pages to see recently uploaded images.

RIP Tony. Very sad news.

To get back to the OP's question...

The Pentax lens review forum on the other forum is a good place to find out what people think of different lenses. I've bought about half of my lenses after having a look there and on other forums, and ended up with some great reasonably cheap lenses. I've probably saved myself a few grand in the process. In fact I now only have two lenses I bought new, the DA15mm Ltd, which I mainly use for IR on a Sony Nex5N, and the Pentax 16-45mm, which I picked up new for 130 quid.

The FA 24-90mm, although very cheap and plasticky-looking, is probably my most used lens, plus it's AF. The Sigma 24-60mm f2.8 was also a bargain, it's very sharp and not much in demand as everyone wants the 24-70mm version. The Tamron Adaptall II 80-200mm is probably my sharpest lens, though it's a toss-up between that and the Tamron Adaptall II SP 90mm f2.5. However, AF is not a priority for me, which gives me a lot more choices, though some of my older lenses are a bit heavy.

There is a very interesting article in the latest version of Digital Photo Pro about interchangeable lens CSC's in which using the Q with legacy lenses is mentioned. Somewhat counter-intuitively, the smaller the sensor, the more likely it will out-resolve the lens, as it is taking the same (or similar) sized image from a much smaller part of the lens, thus effectively magnifying the optical flaws of the lens. Therefore the quality of the lens becomes more critical the smaller the sensor, which also helps explain why some legacy glass appears to work better with film cameras than APS-c digital slr's

I can't understand why so many seem so surprised by the cost of this lens. Pentax have a much smaller market share than Canon or Nikon, and Sigma have the luxury of producing lenses for many different mounts. The cost of designing and producing this lens therefore has to be offset against a much smaller production run, so it has to be priced accordingly. I'm actually surprised that Pentax/Ricoh is producing it at all, as professional sports , wildlife or paparazzi photography are not markets Pentax have been particularly associated with, and I don't think the amateur market for this type of lens would ever make it a viable financial proposition. How many here would buy it if it only cost $3000?

My camera went to Johnsons for a warrany repair (lens release fell off) and came back as a manual focus camera. They had re-assembled it incorrectly.It does not give me any faith whatsoever in the quality of their work, and I would certainly never use them for a paid-for repair. It's now back at Mathers waiting for me to pick it up next week. Here's hoping the same idiot didn't work on it this time.....

In the version of history I did at school, cannons were invented some time after the
Romans.....

I'm glad that the K5 II is so similar to the K5- I don't need fast AF as most of my lenses are MF anyway, and I don't shoot video, so I don't feel any need to upgrade from my K5

If a FF model comes out, however, I will no doubt be spending some money once the price stabilises.

Interesting stuff. I (and my wife) have just started messing around with lighting, which is turning out to be a lot more complicated than I thought, once you get beyond the two-light/white background or outdoor fill-in flash scenarios. Making lighting look natural on a set is way beyond my capabilities at the moment.

In the context of the example shots you have posted, I would agree that the image would work in b+w better than sepia. I would also say that there is perhaps a lack of drama in the shot, which seems to be what this sort of lighting is about, from the examples you posted.