I have owned a DA17-70 and liked it very much indeed - great colours, great contrast, nice bokeh. The only downside for me with this lens was that focussing was a little variable with some bodies, especially my K-5, but this may have been more due to the camera than the lens. I sold the DA17-70 and instead bought Andrew A's Sigma 17-70 F2.8-4 HSM OS, as Andrew was at that time leaving Pentax for Nikon. The Sigma is a really nice lens, probably better all round than the Pentax, for the following reasons:

- Sharp at all apertures, sharper than the Pentax at all focal lengths except 60-70mm where the Pentax just edges it out
- Nice to have a F2.8 aperture at the wide end
- Nice Colours
- Great HSM focussing

All in all a great all rounder, but don't use with a AV filter as I originally was. This was having a very detrimental effect on IQ, but with the filter off all is fine.

So, I would recommend the Siggy 17-70, it is streets ahead of the kit lens, as is the DA17-70, but for me the Siggy is better.

Regards
David

I also prefer the second one, it is absolutely superb. The first is great too, but as David says it doesn't have the same balance as the second does.

Regards
David

Number 4 is great Carl, I think I remember seeing this one before? You couldn't have timed it better.

Regards
David

I don't think you can compare the 18-135 with the DA*50-135, it just doesn't produce any similarity of IQ or bokeh. I'm not suggesting the 18-135 is a bad lens, just that the characteristics are not similar to the 50-135.

Regards
David

I think you already know that I like these Bill, they are 'right up my street' so to speak. The only one that doesn't really do anything for me is #3, but this is just personal preference. The set as a whole is brilliant - I must look up Hardcastle Crags and see if I can find time to go there (difficult at present due to work and home commitments), but if I do, I don't know how I could produce anything that would stand side by side with these.

Regards
David

You don't have to run at 1024 * 768 to get larger text on a big screen, you can just increase the zoom or the font size if it's too small to read. The issues some are having with bright whites or text that is hard to read on certain backgrounds should really be a no-brainer to quickly adjust, this should be a case of the site administrators making some simple changes to the templates, I would imagine this is a 'configuration' rather than a 'code change'. I have some knowledge and experience of similar things, if it's any more than a simple configuration change to amend these things then there's something wrong.

I don't think we should over-react to the changes that have been made; there is always an evolution of such things and a bedding in period. There is also a consideration that needs to be made of how browser technologies move. IE8 for example is only available on PC's running Windows XP; this browser and OS is no longer supported by Microsoft (since April 2014) and it makes no sense for developers to have to continue to support older and older technologies and make everything backwards compatible. There has to come a point when things move on and we will all have a period of adjustment to the changes, as will the site developers and administrators as they will no doubt react to the feedback and fix the gremlins. If all software was only ever released in a 'perfect finished state', we would never have any software (just ask Microsoft).

Regards
David

I'm running a 1920 * 1080 monitor, a high quality screen and I am not finding the whites too bright or anything difficult to read or scroll. The new layout works just fine for me.

Also, as mentioned in another thread, the Gallery images are a revelation compared to the old site, especially the 'larger' view which finally does justice to the originals uploaded. Well done guys on this major improvement!

All we need now is for the Gallery upload problem to be fixed; currently images will not upload

Regards
David

Another great shot Carl for #3, I like the pastel approach very much. I do have a nit-pick with this one though, I can see halos around the black posts, not sure if these are a processing artefact or something else, but there's definitely something going on there.

Regards
David

Same here Bill, perhaps they have introduced some sort of quality control Just joking of course, there's probably some teething trouble.

Regards
David

I'm going against the flow here and I think it looks just fine. I think Algi should update his monitor - 1024 * 768 on a 19" monitor is a bit 'yesteryear' to say the least!! Full HD monitors are pretty cheap nowadays and on my 1920 * 1080 laptop screen the new layout works a treat. For me it is much more modern, cleaner and easier to read, I have no issues with the white space.

However, the biggest gain I have noticed is not on the Forum, but in the Gallery. Finally, my images are looking more akin to how they look in their original state on my PC!! In particular the 'larger' view on the gallery is great, the images have greater clarity, more punch, contrast and detail than they did previously. This has puzzled me a little as it implies that the uploaded images must be stored somewhere in their uncompressed form as otherwise surely they would look the same as they did on the old Gallery? Has anyone else noticed this quality improvement in the Gallery images?

I would be interested in what the site administrators / mods can advise on this point, but whatever the reason it is a most welcome change.

Regards
David