I haven't used HDR extensively, preferring graduated ND filters, and when I have gone for HDR, only rarely have I found the outcome as pleasing as I'd wish.

Mind you, I should confess to frequently forgetting that I cannot use it on my habitual Manual setting, which varies the aperture rather than the speed between bracketed shots

For the scene in question, I'd have probably used a 2 stop hard grad.

As for the 'artistic' dimension of the shots posted, I took the woodland/grassland to be just convenient subjects for testing out a new lens. As such it might have been sufficient to view them solo, without posting, though that's my instinct, not a criticism.

Have to agree with you. I lived near by half a lifetime and more ago. Many of the surrounding roads have Lake District names (Buttermere, Dalegarth etc), but the promise is deceptive Still, it's a pleasant area and as good a place to try out a lens as any other. As you'll know, the landscape gets a bit more interesting along the backtrack to Hamsey Green, overlooking the downs; but it still ain't no Lake District.

Here is the place for any discussion or comments for Monthly Competition No.22 - Fleeting Light

The competition brief is described below:

'By fleeting light, I mean the kind that shines briefly on your subject (or a part of it) before moving on or perhaps becoming obscured. It is a quality of light that can make an enormous difference to the impact of any photograph, and is often the result of planning and patience but sometimes is purely in the gift of Lady Luck. So whether your photograph benefits from the early dawn light picking its way across a landscape or the shafts of intense sunlight that can precede or follow a storm, or some other manifestation of 'fleeting light', please consider entering in this month's competition.

Iin brief, then, I am looking for photographs that have been transformed perhaps from merely ordinary shots into exceptional ones by catching the moment (light-wise).'

I will stop looking in here once the first image is posted so that any of your comments cannot influence the results.

Good Luck

Chris

A good bunch. Mount Ararat is outstanding.

I imagine it's the Subway chain of sandwich shops, long familiar in the US, and now 'over here'. I like to be able to make some link between a photo and its title, even if I just guess 😊

My impression, bolstered by a quick look over some reviews, is that the 50-135 has had a much more positive press. It isn't without the compromises that any lens design has to grapple with -- eg it's criticized for being a little soft wide open at 135mm -- but overall it's a 'thumbs up' from its reviewers. Your point about a designer's intentions for a lens is valid and may well explain what the reviewers have identified as weaknesses in the 16-50. It's hard to know for sure.

Please see my post above (23:08 ). For a * lens it has attracted quite critical reviews that while acknowledging undoubted strengths, find its shortcomings more or less astonishing in a lens of its price and intended quality. The criticisms below were pretty much pulled at random from reviews. It would be easy to multiply them many times over.

'it has some obvious problems like a weak border performance at max. aperture and very pronounced lateral chromatic aberrations (CAs)'
Photozone

'Unfortunately, the sharpness delivered at maximum aperture towards the edges of the frame falls short of what you may expect from a premium lens from a camera manufacturer'
Pentax User

'Unfortunately, it isn't all that sharp at its maximum aperture and displays significant distortion at the wide end of its zoom range'
PC Magazine

It's clearly possible to use this lens and play to its strengths. I suspect that's where the discrepancies between reviews and 'lived experience' arise. If you stop down enough, if software corrects the distortions etc.... But is it credible that so many reviewers are outright wrong about the limitations of this lens?

And my point, simply, was that Pentax do not yet appear to have provided, if the reviews as a whole have any merit, a true companion (in qualatitive terms) to the 50-135.

Formally, yes, I understand that. That wasn't really the point.

Ah, OK. But I suppose my point is that I'd have anticipated that Pentax would have ensured that this popular range (16/17--50/70) would have a stunning lens comparable to the 50-135 in terms of quality.

The 16-50 does not exactly shine in the reviews. Photozone.de is fairly unimpressed, and even the new review carried on Pentax User identifies some limitations that would be significant for some. I chose the 17-70 over the 16-50 largely on the basis of what I read. I find the 17-70 fine. It's not exceptional. It is curious that Pentax has not made a really stand-out modern zoom for this popular focal range.