Not particularly having a dig at Ken here - he raises an interesting discussion - but it occurs to me that one of the most clichéd things is the objection to clichés itself.

Some clichés annoy me, some don't, and I wonder if it's the very subjectivity of what strikes people as unduly clichéd that is at the heart of all this.

For instance, if I see a thread called 'street photography', and it's yet another inevitable series of high contrast, 'moody', black and white pictures, my heart just sinks. Why does street photography have to be black and white?

Whereas I can look at any number of Lake District landscapes and enjoy them all - similarly aeroplanes. The technicals have to be there, but I really don't mind looking at Ashness Bridge yet again. Obviously, if it is original as well as good, that's better, but it doesn't have to be.

Just an example really - it's whatever floats your boat.

What I don't like is insisting on originality. If I had to be original, I'd never take a photograph. Most of the time, I don't have the time to wait for the perfect light, and if I can recreate a cliché really well, then it's often a good step on the road for me.

Bring her!

I'm bringing my other half.

Dunsfold Wings and Wheels.

Anyone going tomorrow (Sunday 26th)?

Some people are not seeing differences in sharpness between the gallery and others are.

I wonder if there's something about the way people's browsers behave that shows some images other than at their intended zoom level.

For instance, some web sites enlarge images to fit the tab as the browser window changes size. It's also possible (using Ctrl-mouse wheel for instance, in Firefox), to change the displayed text size of web pages, and their contained images.

Is it possible that some people are genuinely seeing something different than others?

I've looked at the images in question, and I really can't see much to distinguish them. And I'm pretty sure I can tell when an image doesn't look sharp

Was it this one?

It looks pretty sharp to me in the gallery .... if the original is even sharper, could you put the original online somewhere so that I could actually download the file and look at it outside a browser?

I'm really struggling to see much difference between them to be honest.

The only one that appears significantly different to me is the initial display of the Flickr one, which initially appears enlarged (by the site) and a bit on the soft side. Clicking on it changes the display to a smaller version, which is then just as sharp as the others.

The 900px version in your original link looks very slightly less sharp than the 800px version in your later post, but that's not in itself surprising - smaller pictures often look sharper.

Certainly wouldn't say any of them look rubbish.

Well yes. Setting the camera to MF disengages the AF drive completely (although not the AF sensors of course).

The point of QS is that you don't have to switch to MF to be able to rotate the focus ring.

Er, that's why it's quick shift

Some lenses, such as the DA 55-300 (but not the optically identical, but less expensive DAL version), and the DA17-70, allow you to move the focus ring manually even when the camera is set to AF.

This means you can adjust the focus after the AF has acted, or, more usefully IMO, you can manually move the focus ring close to where the AF will put it.

Lenses without QS won't let you move the focus ring without it rotating the whole screw drive, including the AF motor in the camera. This is a) much more difficult, and b) generally thought of as a practice not to be encouraged.

Well yes - I would have made the same error, based on the PentaxImaging web page. That's what I'm criticising, not you at all.

In fact initially, I assumed I'd just misremembered that detail till Punkrockemo confirmed it.

Very naughty of Pentax then, to say that it does have QS.

I played with one briefly at SRS a couple weeks back, and a) noticed how similar to the DA35 it is (which definitely doesn't have QS), and b) didn't recall any QS, so I was surprised at JR saying it has it.

Good for SRS, who have obviously noted this, and removed the error from their version of the features list, which is otherwise copied from Pentax.

Occasionally I find mine initially goes the wrong way when focusing if it's initially miles out. I haven't seen any hunting backwards and forwards though.

Admittedly I do tend to help it sometimes by MFing to close to the focus point.