I was amazed when browsing through the Gallery this evening to see that Shaun Wilson's picture 'Dark clouds' posted yesterday has had over 470 views! The picture is a stunner, as are most of Shaun's images, so no surprise it attracted attention, but I would be interested to know if this is an all-time record for the number of views in the Gallery on a single day? Perhaps even the record for total views on any number of days?

Can anyone answer this question?

Regards
David

I do tend to use filters, but purely to protect the lens element and the filter threads. Some lenses seem to tolerate filters better than others and I have found the 55-300 to be very picky in this regard. I cannot get it to focus at all with a circular polariser and although it focusses fine with a UV filter, the images are a tad softer than without a filter. The 55-300 is capable of taking very sharp images if used correctly. It also benefits from being stopped down to around 6.3 or 7.1.

Compare this with the 16-45, and this lens doesn't seem to suffer noticeably when used with a filter, either polariser or UV.

Regards
David

Marvellous pictures Matt, the black and white is just magnificent and is my favourite by some distance. I must make an effort to go to a falconry / birds of prey centre.

Regards
David

Andrew, after thinking about this a little more, the kit lens it comes with is really the ideal introduction. Sarah will let you know if she wishes to experiment and branch out a little more - that is probably the time to invest in some nice older glass, although as mentioned in my PM, you could buy a lovely old Chinon 50mm F1.7 or 1.9 for very little money on ebay and they are very good indeed.

Regards
David

I seem to recall that 'Bright' was the default when I bought my K-x? I quickly changed it to 'Natural'.

I have compared the three cameras using the same lenses and the IQ is very different on all of them. The K-x is fairly close to the K-5 in terms of the character of its images, but the K-5 has more finesse, more detail, better colour depth and a much wider dynamic range. The K-m (ccd sensor) is fabulous in good light, but is not an all-rounder like the K-x and K-5 are.

I suppose it's down to personal preferences to an extent, but I think that most people will get consistently better images in a range of lighting situations with the K-5, K-r or K-x than with the older CCD sensor cameras. In good light the playing field will be more even I suspect.

Regards
David

Thanks John, I didn't realise you could upload the RAW files to Photomatix. I will give this a try next time.

Regards
David

I find similar results when comparing the IQ of the K-m (ccd) and K-x (cmos). The K-m images definitely have a different, warmer, punchier quality which at first glance makes them appear better. However, look a little closer and the K-x is actually streets ahead, especially in low light situations (K-5 is better still).

All of the contrast, punch and warmth is easily enhanced during PP'ing anyway, but it's more difficult to recover images from the K-m that have noise in shadow areas, or are a bit under-exposed.

Of my three cameras, the K-5 is definitely the best and by some margin.

Regards
David

Great news Shaun, richly deserved!

Regards
David

I'm not sure I would want to do a wedding even if paid handsomely for it, and definitely not with someone else's gear. Your cameras / lenses become an extension of you, so much like a car you drive all the time. Get in a different car and it feels strange for a few days (unless you are used to drving different ones on a regular basis). As almost everyone else in this thread has said, swallow your pride, stick to your guns and don't do the wedding with a Canon.

Regards
David

Hi Mattox. You don't need to shoot in jpeg to do HDR. Shoot in RAW, then convert to JPEG before uploading the images to a HDR processing program like Photomatix. HDR is great for images with a high dynamic range. It does not work on all pictures, but used carefully it can yield spectacular results.

Regards
David