Pentax pricing has been bizarre for years.

Being significantly more expensive than the closest equivalent Nikon is just stupid, IMO. I just don't get it. Especially since they don't put OS in any of their lenses.

It's certainly true that you can be perceived as too cheap, but they've never been in danger of that.

This image kind of makes my point. It's nothing to do with clichés - it's about the picture, on its own merits.

Without the memory of the fun experienced by the three people involved, the observer has only the image to interpret.

To my eyes, the feather is too small and out of focus to make a major contribution to the image. The heavy-lidded almost-closed eyes draw the attention, and not in a nice way, and the tattoo merging with the child's hair is a distraction, as is the teddy bear or whatever it is, in the corner.

Overall, I think these elements detract so much from the idea of the child watching the feather fall, that the intended theme is lost, and the overall effect is, to me at least, not at all pleasant.

Cliché or not, the reason the image doesn't work for me is simply the image itself.

The more I think about it, the more convinced I become that the notion of cliché is irrelevant most of the time.

I bought my Nikon Coolscan from Adorama. It had been discontinued everywhere else.

I had several emails and phone calls with them, since I was very nervous about importing something so expensive from the USA.

Their service was perfect in every way, including getting it out of the warehouse and checking it over before sending it. Just one transaction, I know, but it wasn't simple, and it was faultless.

Here's an example of how you can't get away with as much with the slower RPM aeroplances...

As you can see, 1/250 is quite a bit too fast. 1/125 or even longer would have been a lot better:




Fixed-pitch props on landing aircraft also go considerably slower - this is 1/125:




Higher-revving props, especially with lots of blades, let you get away with shorter exposures - this one (working hard to keep up with the Hunter) is about as fast as you'll get away with at 1/320, but the Tiger Moth would have looked awful.




HTH

1/200 or longer for most aeroplanes with propellers.

For the very slow-rotating WW1 aircraft, and things like the Tiger Moth or Stampe, slower still.

For WW2 aircraft with higher prop speeds, you can afford to go a bit shorter than 1/200, but probably no shorter than 1/250 unless they're taking off, with the prop in fine pitch.

I'm surprised. I was expecting more of a price-gouge than that.

If it's really, really good optically, that's not too bad, given how ridiculous lens prices have become.

Please don't.

That little lot totally makes my point. Things we've seen (similar to) before, done really well, are absolutely fine, and simply do not have the "no, not again" effect that Smegs was alluding to.

In reality, we see scenes similar to ones we've seen before, every day of the week, and they aren't boring.

It's where they're done badly that is the complete turn off.

It's lovely to see things that are genuinely different. But if everything was completely different from everything else, we'd have the opposite problem, since all would be chaos.

So when it's done well, it's also lovely to see the familiar.

Nice post, Doc.

It's not 'being fussy' at all, I totally agree that it's worth kicking up a fuss, even if there's a workaround.

The default reaction of these so-called tech "support" departments is to assume that the person reporting a problem is an idiot (most probably are, to be fair, but that's no excuse), and to send a standard "go away" sort of reply.

If it's not fixed by the time I get a K-3 I'll be kicking up my own fuss too - the very least they should do is admit the problem and say when/if they'll be able to address it.

As a workaround, would you achieve what you want by using the back AF button exclusively to do the focusing?

That is, disable the 'AF on half-press'?

Then you could focus once (with the back AF button), then recompose and fire a burst with the shutter release.

I totally agree that it's not acceptable for Cancel AF to cancel all kinds of other things as well, but it might get you where you want to be until they fix it, if they can be bothered to actually address the issue (rather than send you a standard fob-off reply).

It would also be good to see if any other K-3 users here can confirm this behaviour.

FTFY - speak for yourself, you're the one moaning about clichés