Thank you.

Dan

No.

Certainly the AF seems to be more responsive, from the video posted by that Spanish(?) guy, high ISO would appear to have been improved. Also, a small change (as far as I know) is the changing of the RAW button to be a Function button too, so it can be programmed to do other stuff. That's something that's been requested many times on here, especially by Mattmatic I seem to recall. Certainly makes sense for those that don't need to easily switch between raw and jpeg.

Dan

I shot the photos on here using AF-S, and just watching the dragonflies for a while to see where they regularly hovered. It was then a case of pre-focusing on the rough spot where they were likely to be, and then allowing autofocus to lock on when they hovered there.

You're unlikely to get shots when they're actually in motion, but they tend to hover in one spot for a second or two, and that's when you can get them. I had limited time when I took those shots, otherwise I would have played more with shutter speeds and apertures, but they're not as tricky to shoot as you might think.

90% of wildlife photography is knowing what the animal's going to do, not what settings to have the camera on.

Dan

Any guesses as to which lens review that's from?[/quote]We can all pick out select sentences to support an argument...

[quote="Photozone"]The lens shows barrel distortions at around 1.7%, certainly more than one would expect from a prime lens in this focal range.[/quote]

[quote="Photozone"]The extreme borders are visibly softer wide open and reach only good values, however stopping down helps to increase the resolution here. [/quote][quote="Photozone"]Chromatic aberrations (color shadows at harsh contrast transitions) are moderate wide open, but rather high for the rest of the aperture range. This is a somewhat disappointing behaviour...[/quote][quote="Photozone"]Unfortunately at wide open aperture the AF-S 35 shows a rather high amount of outlining resulting in a slightly nervous bokeh. From f/2.8 onwards these outlines disappear and the bokeh smoothens considerably, however highlights in the background remain troubled by LoCAs (see next section).[/quote]I'd be surprised if it's an outstanding lens, but for the price I'm sure it will be fine. Is it fast enough for everybody? Obviously not. Is it fast enough for most people? Yes, probably. Perhaps it will perform in a similar way to my FA50mm f/1.4, because I rarely use it wider than f/2.4 anyway.

Dan

Either Pentax have read this thread, or they've got in bed with Dyson.

Dan

From your example here, John was right in that you have spot metering enabled, which means, in that example at least, that the camera is trying to make the black side of the cow, which is in the middle of the frame, a mid-tone. It's done this very well. However, it's resulted in a very burnt out background.

Change the metering mode to centre-weighted or matrix, and all will be much better. Look in the manual for 'metering mode' if you don't know how to change it.

Dan

Different reviewer, but I can't help thinking they got a bad copy of the 300mm - doesn't sound like the same lens as mine. "...some visible softness across the frame at f/4..."?!? Not a chance!

Dan

You posted that link in your very first post...

There is a letters page, but it seems to be woefully out of date. It has one letter saying how sorry someone is to be seeing Woolworths closing.

Dan

And the Sigma does half life-size macro too. Does it really 'weigh a ton'?

Dan

Have you tried another lens on it? Sounds like it's not recognising the aperture, and you may not have the custom function set to allow it to fire without an 'A' lens mounted.

Dan