Yours is Wonderfull Ken!
Great to see that the resluts of ours are different but that they hit the spot like John said.

May I ask why you soften things up, I went completely the other way and sharpend it.

How about this?
[IMG]http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk244/Anvh/IGP6428edit.jpg[/IMG]

A little bit oversharpend in the tree on the rightside but you get the idea
Tried to make it a bit dreamy, more of a fantasy.

edit: I need to write this down because I'm sure I will forget what I did.
- cropped
- levels
- vibrance & saturation
- a 50% color layer
- a 70% darken layer
- sharpend
- a 70% softlight layer
in this order of layers

Wow you know your way with your macro lens, the dof is spot on every time

Don, it's a lovely photo.
The spider is very clear but please do some post-processing to get the noise away from and just a tiny bit of sharpening too, it will help the photo.

Some flashes can be set as a dumb flash, they simply flash whne ever they notice a flash.
What little experience I've with Canon I don't believe they can be set as dumb so look for another brand.

PM = Personal Message, click on his name and you see his profile, on the right you can sent him a message now.

I've been told that the focus is off when it locks on with the K10D, thats a main concern for me.

If you want a fast AF lens get a DA40, that's a speed demon. Maybe the fastest lens that there is for Pentax.

For landscapes, GND filters can be helpfull.
With a such a system as cokin you can decide were the transition of the filter is and such. To fit it on another lens you only need a small ring instead of buying new filters so that's a good investment for that money.
The also sell a set with the holder and 3 variations of GND filters they are quite cheap.
Polarization filter is also very handy outdoors, just search on internet what it does with the flora and the sky and you will see why you want one. The only bad thing is that they are expensive though.
It seems btw that you can use linear filters without any ill effect so try it I would say, they are a lot cheaper.

The kitlens is a very decent lens, simply look here and you see what I mean link
You might better use it for a couple of months and for now buy a second-hand pentax A 50mm f1.7 lens so that you get a feel what a fast prime does. After that you've a far better understanding what you want to do.

Here is a decent looking lens link

ps. Kris idea is also great get the 50mm and the 55-300 and you've a kit that covers alot of things.

Oh yes indeed Dave the build quality is very good and they even upgraded the image quality with the mark II so only respect for that.

You want to say canon but the new lens of them is quite decent it seems, Nikon kit lenses are still crap though. I don't know really what the rest does, not much good I think.

It might be fun subject for a competition, that we can only use the kit lens.

Dave, do you mean with you solely me or everyone
I do confest that I hardly any use the lens since I've the 18-250 so no real need to carry it, but just like any other lens you need to know how to use it.

As you can see Peter shoot mostly with f/8 and around the middle of his range, the sweet spot of the DA 18-55.