It's very good. Among the best I've seen posted here, and certainly better than mine

But I'm sure you already knew that, because doubtless you've already compared it with lots of moon shots that people have already posted.

So I'm not clear what you're asking here - there are lots of tutorials on how to use curves and sharpening techniques, and if there's one consistent theme amongst them all, it's that there's no 'one-size fits all' recipe that applies equally to all pictures, and it's often just a question of trying them all until it looks as good as it can - which is very subjective anyway.

It would be nice, from a learning point of view, to have a little more detail of what you actually did to achieve it - the exposure is available in the EXIF, but you haven't said which lens you used to achieve the recorded 300mm.

I've got the impression before that you're not always keen to divulge these details. Of course, that's entirely your choice, but not necessarily appropriate if you're looking for feedback on how to improve - since in order to know how to make something better, it helps to know how it was made in the first place.

If it's the DA* 300, then I'm not surprised it's so good - by all accounts it's an excellent lens, so it can really take advantage of all the pixels the K20D gives you.

In my limited experience, the better the photo, the less editing it needs to get it to look its best.

Yes it is - I've been really busy and haven't had a chance to eBay it yet

I'd be looking for GBP 55, plus whatever it costs to ship, and I'd be happy to ship to Australia, provided that the shipment was tracked and insured - so that if it did happen to arrive in lots of pieces there wouldn't be the risk of bad feeling.

I've no experience of shipping overseas - can anyone help with recommendations?

I do think that if Pentax ended up only selling the K-7, it would indicate a lack of a future - it would make it harder for retail outlets to support the brand, and there'd be a vicious circle which would inevitably have a knock-on effect on the lenses market.

Anyone that didn't want to rely on trawling eBay for second hand bodies and lenses would be more inclined to switch brands, I think.
This, however, is wisdom indeed

No problem at all - as I say, quite understandable amidst all the heat.

In the first instance, I was interested in the practical difference that a sync speed of 1/250s might make make to real world photography as opposed to 1/180s, given that it's less than half a stop different.

The thing is, "about Pentax" can't really be dissociated from "about Pentax compared with other brands".

It makes no sense at all to me, to be an isolated community from which visitors can get nothing more balanced than "we love Pentax". I think it enriches the forum considerably having people who can write informatively about other brands and their pros and cons.

We could have a separate forum, like PentaxForums.com now has, that includes a special area to discuss other brands in their relationship to Pentax. Then if you weren't interested, it would be easy to avoid.

But my vote would be to avoid getting any more parochial - I don't think we need a separate area myself.

I don't see any benefit in being 'maverick' for its own sake, either.

Maybe mine got lost in the noise, but in a couple of posts I did try to ask you about some of your specific objections to Pentax, relating to lenses and flash sync.

You didn't respond, which was a little disappointing, if quite understandable amidst all the heat.

But you also said that you like genuine debate. It would be nice if we could have an actual debate with you about genuine photographic topics.

Who knows, maybe I'd end up moving to Nikon

This may be of interest to some.

I think I need to get hold of a Pentax cable release and re-do the tests I did before.

The bottom line was that with the camera on a tripod, releasing the shutter with a finger caused a tiny bit of shake that SR made no difference to - no better and no worse than with it on or off.

However, if SR is still on with a cable remote, and the shutter can be released with no shake at all, maybe there's something that the previous conditions were not able to detect.

I don't particularly want to shell out for one - would anyone like to lend me theirs?

Edit: just as I clicked, I thought of Remote Assistant. Anyone know if that leaves SR on?

Plausible. If you're right, it makes Pentax's obfuscation even more culpable.

If you're right, and there's something funny about SR in the presence of no actual shake (as opposed to finger induced shake), not to be completely specific about the actual problem, and the mode or modes in which it might be experienced, is simply disgraceful.

It makes me think there was a problem they couldn't reproduce reliably, and couldn't explain, so just put a vague catch-all recommendation in the book, intentionally omitting the sort of detail that would make them look stupid.

I mean, I know I'm being a bit paranoid, but being paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you...

Me too.

When I bought Photoshop Elements, it installed the Adobe downloader, which sucks pictures of the card and stored them on the hard disk. I let it create folders dated with the download (not the shot) date.

Then I use Picasa to pull them all into its library. Flicking through the folders is so quick that looking at the thumbnails is good enough to find most things quite quickly. Occasionally I'll copy something into a separate folder.

I would never have the patience to catalogue, add keywords etc, so it works for me.

14,000 images and counting.