These are so much more successful than your landscapes Nigel, they have depth and focal points, the subjects fill the frame well and the processing is vibrant.

Well done, more like these please.

Regards
David

NO! Don't do it, you will end up with a useless slab of magnesium alloy. That's if the camera will even recognise the file (it would probably need to be re-named), but it's just not worth trying.

Regards
David

If it's working and says '1.03' what's the problem Chris?

I seem to recall that mine also just went blank when updated, I've had no problems with it since.

Regards
David

TC arrived today in good condition, thanks Samson!

Had a quick try out in very dim light and was surprised to find that it focusses in AF with my Sigma HSM lenses (17-70 and 150-500)!

It won't AF with the DA*300, but it's fine (if a bit hesitant) with all the screwdrive lenses I tried, including the 55-300. Initial impressions of IQ are that it's not too bad, not in the same league as the Pentax HD 1.4 TC, but I wouldn't expect it to be.

Regards
David

Another alternative is to buy a 2x AF Teleconverter and remove the glass. I've just bought one off the Forum and may consider doing this, depending on whether the glass meets my approval for sharpness.

You can get a new 2x AF TC for about £110, a used one will be less but they are quite hard to find. They won't give much extension, less than a full set of tubes, but if AF is critical for you this will be your best bet.

Personally, I find AF of very limited use for macro work as the Depth of field is often so thin that using AF is not practical.

Regards
David

These are very good and demonstrate considerable camera skill. No IQ issues with the K-3 at ISO 2000 either.

Well done David, thanks for posting.

Regards
David

Clarification:

I know that slow speed sync would not have helped in your situation, but I wanted to try and explain what it is. Pentax cameras will not shoot higher than 1/180 with flash, so the bright light you are mentioning would not have allowed you to use flash in this circumstance.

You would have needed a ND or polarising filter, or to close the aperture down to reduce the shutter speed enough to allow the use of fill-in flash. Fletcher8 did a post about this some time ago, where he used a ND filter deliberately to allow flash usage outside. The results were very nice.

Regards
David

Hi Naim:

1. You don't have to shoot at 1/180 with flash. Slow speed sync is all about using a slower shutter to capture ambient light and the flash to fill in shadows. Did you have the camera set on 'X-sync'? If so this will fix the shutter speed at 1/180

2. I'm not familiar with the Metz 58 AF1 so I can't answer this one I'm afraid. I would imagine it is a setting where you can manually set different power outputs for the flash, instead of leaving on P-TTL and adjusting the flash exposure in-camera

Regards
David

It is a very good start! The second shot is the one that catches my attention, it proves that you have a fantastic eye for an image. The exposure is high on the bird, but that shouldn't be a concern for you because camera skills can be learned, whereas the ability to 'see' and frame an image is probably more something you are born with, although it can be improved upon with practice.

None of the others stand comparison to the second one. The first swan is quite nice and the dog is very cute, but the rear view of the Swan, the Duck and the Pigeon are probably only good for test shots. At the moment I would not worry too much about the processing. Learn to use the camera and learn how to take photos instinctively, once you've mastered this you can move onto the finer details of processing your shots.

Regards
David

I've just downloaded Fullscreen Photo Viewer and it doesn't recognise DNG's! So no good for me I'm afraid and it hasn't solved the K-3 DNG rendering issue.

Thanks for the suggestion though Nigel.

Regards
David