There are loads of members who are either not comfortable with computers or are very skilled with a camera, for whom RAW, is just not necessary.
I've got a feeling Peter is not really reading the stuff about Faststone (Peter?) and is one of those who just don't need RAW 95 percent of the time.

But like it or not, RAW is your negative; the software your darkroom, and if you like fiddling, or eking out every last detail, then it has to be RAW and a proper convertor, not Faststone, much as I love it for JPEGs.

He he, thanks anyway
I look forward to the other shots.

That last comparison looked very convincing.
Think I'll give this a shot at some point. No rush.
I'd like to see a moon shot taken with this thing, the DA*300 and a K5iis then I can make a direct comparison
Then the same but with a K3 so I can decide if I'm missing out there too! lol

Beautiful Kris

I could be wrong as I haven't used it for a while (no Mac version), but my understanding is it is very basic; it works on the default conversion of the RAW data, rather than the more complex permutations. It may also only be 8bit, which would definitely give Peter problems with his highlights.
There's also a possibility that you will be viewing a JPEG preview, if you don't explicitly ask it to render the RAW file (much slower).
Happy to be proved wrong, as I love that program and regularly advise customers to use it for their website images.

Oh yes astrotracer! That's genius

My understanding of ETTR is that there is far more data in the light half that the dark half, so it's desirable to get the histogram as far to the right as possible, without clipping.
The image will also be less noisy.
I don't think Faststone deals with RAW data properly, if at all.
A clipped highlight is a clipped highlight even in the darkroom; all you'll get is an approximation of a recovered tone.

I loved the fact that all my old lenses were stabilised; it was one of the reasons for going digital with Pentax. My first ever post on here, was an example from the K10D with and without shake reduction. The difference was unscientifically impressive. We should post our best examples.
Here's my starter taken last night across a very dark dancefloor. 3200iso, 1/8th, f2.5, 77mm. Clearly usable, on the web at least

The 'misquote' was your fabrication of my opinion; taking my words out of context to suit your mud-slinging.
Feel free to read the rest of my post and comment on the interesting stuff, instead of trying more backhanded abuse. I was perfectly clear with my opinion of you and I gave clear and reasoned evidence why you couldn't have been more wrong about me.

That is a complete misquote (as usual), I'm certainly oversensitive to overbearing tits; had enough of that in the playground.
I own two K5 (one of which I'm selling) and one K5iis (second-hand, so hardly pricey). So tell me, which purchase am I defending exactly?

On a more useful note: Yesterday I noticed the dreaded orange and blue banding on the fabric of a paying model's shirt. There was no reason to use the 's' at that point in the studio, it just happened to have the best lens on.
So I'll be more careful to choose the correct tool for the job next time.... the K3
No, seriously the K5, K10d, K-x, K7 would have
been perfect for that job