I'd be interested to know if the use of the word 'edification' came from Dirk, or a translator.

It's an interesting one, since 'edification' comes from the verb 'to edify', which refers to teaching, or instruction. It does not, in English, have anything to do with 'edifices', which are buildings, clearly the context of Dirk's post.

But they both have the same Latin root, so it's an understandable confusion.

But yes, absolutely. He does a damn sight better here than I would, attempting to get by on a Spanish (?) language forum.

Well MX veteren has the K100D Super in his sig, so I downloaded its manual and had a look in there.

It's certainly page 48 in the version I downloaded.

Sure you're not looking in the K10D manual? (It's p68 in there )

It certainly won't do it any damage.

It's been alleged that leaving it switched on, on a tripod, fools it into shaking the sensor when the camera isn't being shaken, thus resulting in worse results than if it was switched off.

I've never seen any evidence for this myself, nor seen any presented. I must try a really long exposure sometime, on the tripod with SR on, and then again with SR off. It would have to be very long, in order for any shake introduced by the act of pressing the shutter release to die down and be insignificant compared with the rest of the exposure.

The camera switches the SR off automatically, in most of the circumstances you'd be using it on a tripod anyway (bottom of p4, so it's a little tricky to really test this.

So the "be sure to switch off SR on a tripod" advice, also on p48, is a complete mystery to me.

In fact, the exposure for the first one is 1/8s, not 1/2. And the focal length is 93mm, not 50mm, assuming the lens is reporting its data correctly.

Assuming you have SR switched on, I'd say it's doing a pretty good job.

For the second one the shutter speed for the second one is in fact 1.5 seconds. An exposure time that long is really asking too much of the mechanism, pretty much regardless of the focal length.

Maybe you should look at the actual photo details a little more carefully before rubbishing the feature.

Agreed. I have three . Though none faster than 1.7

Cheers guys. Much appreciated - I'll keep these offers in mind.

Wrong sub-forum, I guess, but I like the sound of a local User Group - I'd be up for it if it exists.

I'm fast coming to the conclusion that you're right.

Indeed, and I'm very grateful for both the informative posts from a good number here, and also for the way some of you guys put up with me banging on about things until I gain some level of understanding.

Aha. I wasn't, but I am now. Maybe the next key in the puzzle. It's like Half Life, or Far Cry, but without all the shooting. Well, a different sort of shooting, anyway.

Thank you, yes.

Sure. When you have the right sort of experience, I don't doubt that it's reliable.

However, I know I don't. And I also infer from what some people write elsewhere, that they don't either.

So what's a relative newbie like me to do?

Experimenting for oneself gets expensive once you get past the consumer-zoom price point.

I believe you.

It just bugs me more and more (almost to the point that I have to pour myself a second glass of wine) when I see anything (other than a 100% crop, obviously) posted on a web forum, with people claiming that it shows anything at all about the respective sharpness of the lenses in question.

People here aren't often guilty of it, but there's another forum, not a million miles away, where for the sake of my blood pressure I've just had to stop reading it because of all the

"here's a picture"
"ooh, nice crisp sharp shot"

... and similar rubbish you read, when actually they're noticing contrast, USM, or just the fact that four pixels collapses to one when you quarter the linear dimensions of the rendition.

Sorry. Rant over

Can you really tell this at web resolutions?