What are your shooting conditions, what is your desired final outpt? Can't answer your question without more information.

Super-quick journalisim uses Jpeg generally, fine art photographers go for RAW. It's all in what you're trying to accomplish!

I wouldn't worry too much about the hotshoe cover, those are a recent developement and I've usually just tossed them. If you MUST have one, take a thick peice of paper, or thin cardboard, paint it black, cut to size,and there you go.

The eyecup can be ordered from various places, like B&H in the States or Jessops in the UK.

We're looking at what would be an 18mm view on a full-frame camera. The camera was placed pretty far back, so the wide-angle effect continues on via the mirror. I thought it was extreme, but that's what I saw in the viewfinder. The bed fills the foreground, but the mirror shows the carpet between the closet and the bed.

Do some experimenting with mirrors and wide angle lenses. You'll find some pretty weird effects. I happen to like to use mirrors in photos, so I'm getting used to it by now.

Well, I've finally posted a cople of tests I did with the 12-24 lens. OK, one was for a client. But the shot directly into the sun was just a test.




1/4000 second at f/5. Note the absence of the usual string of sun circles, and that there is minimal flare even right close to the sun. Very impressive performance. Sharp, too!




1 second at f/8 ( to get both near and far in focus). This is a great lens for interiors!

The closet is far from level, it's an old building. But distortion is pretty mimimal, needing maybe only a setting of 1 in the Lens Correction feature of Photoshop. You could pretty much ignore it for most applications.

Both shots taken at 12mm, the widest the lens will go.

So I'd say we have a winner here!

The reason for using jpeg is quick results. News and sports photography uses a lot of jpeg, it goes out over the wire and shows up in the newspaper before the game is over!

If you have he time, taking RAW gives you the most flexabliity. Maybe that snapshot of the local monument is a smapshot for you, until the local paper has a photo contest and then you suddenly regret using Jpeg because you could have gotten so much more out of RAW.

Storage is cheap. I use CS2 and store all the RAW files as DNG. If I need to do additional alterations, they get transferred to PSD and the changes and layers are all saved.

For example, once I've done the basic settings in RAW, I take all the keepers, use the Image Processor to make little jpegs and send a CD off to the US Copyright Office. If there's a need to prove that I own an image, jpeg is fine. If I need to exhibit in a gallery or produce a double-page spread for an ad, I still have the RAW ot start with so I can produce anything I need from the image. Whatever the client wants.

If you're taking snapshots of your kid's birthday party, jpeg is fine, all the relatives will want to see copies right away. But for anything else, I'd go RAW, and convert to DNG for safety's sake.

The CS2 version of ACR is much improved, it operates within Bridge now, and you can do your RAW adjustments, and then save the adjustments without opening the file! I like to go through the keepers, do the basic RAW adjustments (exposure, white balance, straighten and crop) and then go back and do detail work on my favorites.

You can do a lot in the RAW converters, which makes the final touch-up in Photoshop or whatever to be much faster.

Thanks, Matt, I'm on it! I'll post in the Adobe forums, too!

I wonder if Smsung will add to the bewildering array of proprietary RAW formats, or do the sensable thing and use the publicly documented DNG for its RAW files. It's about time we photographers demanded an end to all these incompatable formats, and press the camera makers to include DNG as a RAW format.

It's already used by some cameras and medium format backs.

It's fully documented, available to anyone, and has fields for all the fancy proprietary stuff that you could want. Wake up, camera makers, get over yourselves!!

OK, end of rant.

In regards to the 12-24, the Pentax SMC is far superior to any other coating out there. I took a photo straight into the sun with the 12-24 Pentax, and there was NO flare. Not even a hint of flare.

That's pretty impressive.

I had pretty much all the lenses I needed except for the wide end when I bought the D. The 16-45 is absolutely superb, as is the 12-24. So my 20mm M lives with the MX cameras, and the rest of the pack can go on either film or digital, except for the two D lenses.

The 16-24 combined with an old K 45-125 is a great kit for walking around, especially when I keep a 31mm f/1.8 as a normal. Just like the old days!!