That's too bad.
Remote assistant is OK, but it does lack some basic functionality that just keeps it from going over the edge from "nice toy" to truly usable. One more to add to the "nice toy" category. ergh!

Cool feature. I have not heard of the K20 having that feature.

If you can tether to a PC, try the Remote Assistant software.
Unfortunately, the last time I tried with my K10D, I got a lot of application crashes, hung connections and even stuck up my camera until I pulled the batteries.

I haven't had the need or patience to try with the latest version.
It might be worth a go.

-tony

3/5 v.s. 4/5 for features and Build? On what basis?

Does the Sigma have silent hypersonic focusing?
Does Sigma have the internal focusing?
Can you drop the Sigma from over a meter and still have a flawlessly functioning lens?

I can definitely say Yes for all the above regarding the Pentax 50-135.


I don't actually know what Sigma offers for that lens, but I doubt it stands up to the Pentax 50-135.
As for the other testing areas, like mentioned, I'd have to see on what they based their findings but if the F&B category is any indication of their homework, I wouldn't hold too much faith in their methods and findings.

Dunno about later releases, but last time used the Gimp, it was slow and unstable. It lacked some of the features I 'thought" I needed in photoshop at the time and tutorials were geared towards photoshop and generally near unavailable for other products.

At the time, I also got PS for less than half the going price, so it fell reasonably within the price point of other products for the features it had at the time.

Now, I suppose Gimp is much faster and more stable and even more capable. There is also a lot more online documentation and tutorials for things like PaintShop Pro and Gimp.

PaintShop Pro, as of PSP X, was still horribly slow and color management was a complete disaster. Although it had some REALLY nice features that made workflow for certain actions many times quicker than the manual steps required by Photoshop. (de-skewing an image for example).

I will probably not upgrade PhotoShop next time around. Their concern lately seems to be to let PhotoShop stagnate and instead add new products to bring in more cash from the ultra rich.
The new features are often buggy, slow and sometimes even none-too useful compared to similar features in other products -- which if I added them together probably wouldn't cost half the price of CS3.
e.g. resizing, noise cancellation, photomerge (complete joke of a feature), extraction tool filter, etc...

Hey man, all you needed to item #10. The rest are just incidentals.

Sounds like a solid platform to me.

Yeah, my cheapo press won't do those funky tricks.
Ended up clamping the stick flat to the table and hand drilling the hole while the drill was resting sideways on blocks. Worked great. Since the stick is far from straight to begin with, the hole didn't have to be plum.

Epoxyed up and it works. I won't be allowed to have a tripod, so this will be nice to have.

And, of course, twenty minutes later I found what I really wanted. It is a bolt with wood screw threads on one end, and machine threads on the other. But my hardware store doesn't carry that stuff anyway, so no loss I guess.

Your idea to epoxy in a nut is great. I have the hole in the cap, but it doesn't hold well to the screw. Bolting it on would certainly solve that issue!

Thanks for the ideas.

That was my initial thought. Just not sure how to hold a meter+ length of wood and make a straight hole. Not like I can put it under the drill press. (half a meter off the base which is a solid slab of metal)

Time to make some jigs, eh? I'd rather not cut the end off and then try to re-attach securely.

Thanks for the second opinion. For some reason it sounds more sane when someone else has a similar idea.

I have a wooden walking stick that I would like to turn into a monopod. Anyone have any ideas or have found any good DIY sites on what materials might be used to do that?
I haven't found much other than soda bottle "tripod" thing-a-majigs.

Definitely true. These guys are just big marshmallows!
Our last rotty went so nuts at fireworks that he had to be sedated.
These two rarely care at all.
They are/were all from rescue, so it is possible our last rotty had fire-crackers tossed at him or was otherwise tormented to be more "fierce". Really sad, when all they want is to be by your side.