George, I am not going to be drawn into your grubby little world of personal insults. I have asked you once before (privately) to refrain from this idiocy but you seem unable to do so.

You have no idea of why I post on the Gallery and why I don't often post images in the Forum, so please don't indulge in pointless inaccurate speculation. Some of the members on here do actually know me personally and I would imagine they are currently howling with laughter at your feeble attempts at character assasination.

Thank you for your almost warm comments on two of my images.

Regards
David

It's a Small Tortoiseshell Stan. As for CC, I'm a bit worried I may attract some scathing comments if i leave any, but for what it's worth I do think the aperture needed to be a bit smaller to give more depth of field. Colours are lovely and vibrant and the bokeh is really nice.

Regards
David

The Gallery clearly means different things to different people. In the UK PU Gallery there is no limit on the number of uploads allowed for fully paid up members, so we cannot compare it to the Gallery in the States. If a different system was introduced to the UK Gallery, e.g. one upload per month this probably would increase the quality, but I also think it may cause the UK PU to lose some members.

With regard to the comments on images, there is a wide variety. Some are as George has stated a little brief and non-descriptive, but I for one do try to put meaningful comments on images I view and so do lots of other members. I wonder also if the George's observations could sometimes be applied to the Forum? There are quite a number of meaningless and irrelevant comments posted on here too and one could argue that it suffers from the same symptoms as the Gallery, i.e. too few people posting too many empty comments.

I echo the comments earlier in this thread of many, including Pentaxophile, Blythman, and Coker in that it is up to the members how many and which images they post and it is also up to the members to interpret the Gallery as they will. There are still a lot of excellent images posted on the Gallery and also a lot that are not in the same league but that represent important milestones for people learning the art of photography. Both types are equally valid.

Regards
David

Hi George, hope you are well. I don't think most of my pictures are much good either, but I post on the Gallery to receive constructive comments / criticism so that I can hopefully improve. I'm sure many others are the same and I don't have any issues with members posting any number of images. We all have our own views and opinions and although I do tend to post comments and observations on images, I do try to be polite and constructive. I will never be a photographer in Puma or Timbo's league but that doesn't mean I can't try and posting images on the Gallery is part of that process of trying.

Back to Dr. O's topic, I would be interested to see the observations on the way different Web Browsers affect the image quality.

Regards
David

Regards

Very well done Stan, it's great to hear of success achieved by members on this site, regardless of the perceived level of the competition. Please show us the pictures!

Regards
David

I do feel you are maybe being more critical of your own images Dr. O, because you're used to seeing them in all their native glory on your PC, whilst members viewing them on here are comparing them like for like with other images uploaded via the same process that also suffer. For what it's worth, despite the compression / softening, your images still stand out from the rest because they are so good in the first place. I do agree though that it would be great if the IQ on the Galllery could be improved. A short while ago I uploaded an image of a bird of prey which is absolutely razor-sharp, but on the Gallery looked quite soft and lost a lot of its impact.

Regards
David

Well done Roger, I can imagine it's quite difficult to get shots like this right and I think you've done a great job.

Regards
David

I agree with Dr. O that the images on the Gallery are soft, there must be something going on within the upload process that is compressing them, even when the originals are in a suitable size and format. I find this less so on the click through version, but it is still an issue.

With regard to the photographic quality (or otherwise) of Gallery images uploaded, it is not relevant to this thread and is completely off topic. However, I feel that if members are going to comment on this, they should be prepared to upload some of their own images so we can all judge their comparative quality and creativity. We must bear in mind that a large number of contributors to the Gallery are enthusiastic amateurs, not professional photographers, myself included, and we just enjoy sharing the pictures we take. I don't have any issue with members not viewing the Gallery, but I do not think it's fair that sometimes scathing comments are made by some members who rarely (if ever) contribute to the Gallery in terms of posting pictures.

Back to the topic of the thread, it does seem that somethig could be done to improve the quality of images uploaded (in technical terms relating to the upload process) so that we can all enjoy them in their best possible quality.

Regards
David

Another vote from me Sally for the Sigma 105mm F2.8 DG EX Macro. I've owned one for a few months now, after previously having a Sigma 50mm manual focus F2.8 macro and I think it is a superb lens. The 105 is definitely the better lens, although the 50mm was sharp, it was not as consistently good. The issue is one of cost versus performance; the 50mm manual focus lens sells for approx £90 to £100, whereas the 105 DG EX will set you back between £225 and £300 for a good one. I wouldn't worry too much about AF if I were you as you will probably find that most of your macro shots are with manual focus.

Any 'K', 'KA' or 'KAF' mount lens will fit your K-x without an adaptor, regardless of what make it is.

Regards
David

NO! If I can't get a good shot 'in the wild' then I don't get a good shot at all! I can imagine it would be easier to stage it but it doesn't sit comfortably with me.

Regards
David