Do you happen to know if Silkypix does a better job of this than CS3?

It's all starting to make a lot more sense - yes, it helps a lot.

Thanks again guys.

I was afraid it might be. Thanks for this reference.

As it happens, I was shooting RAW+ for much of the trip, so I have the PEF for this shot. I'll see what I can do with it.

Ok, so the 18-55 vignettes at the wide end.

I'm still interested, though, in why the transition from dark to overexposed seems to go in bands of colour.

Here's another example. It's the Rialto Tower in Melbourne, and the sun is quite low and behind the building, hence the way the blue sky is washed out towards the bottom.

However, between the blue of the sky at the top and the white at the bottom, there's what looks to me like a turquoise band (as in the earlier shot), which makes the otherwise relatively inoffensive transition from blue to white quite unattractive.

Any ideas as to the cause specifically of the unnatural transition?

This was shot towards the sun, and not surprisingly, as you can see, it suffers from all sorts of horrors - over exposure, flare, and blue/purple fringing, to say nothing of the dreadful composition.

However, what I'm interested in is the colour banding at the top right. The actual colour of the sky was blue - it was a clear sunny day with excellent visibility.

K10D, DA 18-55 @ 18mm, F5.6 and 1/125.

Any ideas what causes it?

Even more so in single-pilot ops with no autopilot

Ah, fair enough. Not quite as exciting then, but still a lot better than a poke in the eye. Did you get any impression of whether this was new stock, with more coming, or the tail end of a drying-up supply?

Wow!!!!!!!

If it's for real, then this really is excellent news. At risk of stating the obvious, it means Sigma believe that there's money in it for them.

We can expect a swift review, then ?

Edit: Hmm. Pentax is in the list of mounts for it on the Sigma website., but it does say there that:

"(the HSM is only available for AF Canon, Nikon, Four Thirds and Sigma Mounts)."

So either the website is out of date, or it might be worth calling Microglobe back to confirm what you're getting.

This post at PentaxForums.com claims that there is an SDM version imminent.

http://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/104834-post6.html

No idea as to the truth of the claim though.

Also, I have one, in excellent condition, which I'm thinking of selling. I need to rationalise my set of lenses and sell the ones I don't use all that much.

So if Ziggles (or anyone else for that matter) is interested, feel free to PM me.

I've tried this, and it is quite impressive, even with the £6 Tokina 28mm I used.

Reversed on to extension tubes it's even more amazing, and not all that difficult to do.

x1.9 just with the lens reversed, and up to x4 reversed on to a set of extension tubes.