Freddie Mercury - it would have to be black and white with strong contrasts.

Regards
David

I agree wholeheartedly John. A quick browse through the Gallery highlights this; some fantastic quality images from all variations of Pentax DSLR's.

Regards
David

Welcome to you Malcolm, it sounds like you have some very good kit there and we look forward to seeing some pictures taken with it. As others have mentioned, you will find no better place for advice and help. You also mentioned the quility of images uploaded to the site and I agree with you. IMHO, the standard on average is better than the current standard of images uploaded to the official Pentax Photo Gallery. There are some very talented people on this site!

Regards
David

It says on the text under the video that he was making a 'Visit Scunthorpe' guide so he had good reason to be taking pictures of buildings in the town.

What a funny video, best I've seen in some time! If it were me taking that sort of attitude from a jobsworth I would have stood my ground in the same way as he did.

Regards
David

Andrew

Do you have access to a Rayburn or Aga range cooker or similar? If so you could leave it in the warming oven section - this should dry it out pretty quickly without damaging it. If not, we have one so you could bring it with you when we meet?

Regards
David

I'm so glad to see you have got your Pentax back! I hope it rewards you with great pictures!

Regards
David

Great set Adrian, I like no 5 in particular but they are all superb.

Regards
David

Hi Phil

I work with computers all day every day so I think I know my way around them. Best advice I can give is to keep it simple at first and progress at your own pace. A few pointers:

- When you have made your adjustments in Silkypix, choose the 'Save As' option from the menu and save the files to a location of your choice - don't just let Silkypix put them in the default 'Pentax' folder
- When you choose 'Save As' you could also choose to save the file as a jpeg, as Windows XP will recognise this without you having to download other things
- In Silkypix you can go into the 'Options' menu and set the default folder for saving files to a folder of your own choice - if you do this you will always know where they have gone when you save them
- For processing your jpegs (after doing your RAW changes and saving from Silkypix) I would stick with Paint.net for the time being. It's simple to use and once you get to know it you can do some quite sophisticated processing with it. Personally, it is the only processing tool I bother with, apart from Silkypix and Photomatix, which is only used for HDR processing.

Hope this is useful.

Regards
David

Try to get on a few days out with one or more of the PU members close to you in and around Leeds - you will probably learn more this way in a few hours than you would in weeks of reading books and magazines.

Regards
David

Hi Stigg, you've probably seen enough comments and advice above, but I own both the Sigma 70-300mm DG APO and the Pentax DA L 55-300mm.

I don't know if the APO version of the Sigma is much better than the non-APO version, but I can tell you absolutely definitively and from personal experience that the Pentax DA L 55-300mm is streets ahead in terms of image quality. Sharper, more contrast, better colours and the pictures have that indefinable quality that ones shot with the Sigma do not. Also, forget the Macro setting as it's not true macro. If you are serious about taking good macro shots, get either a dedicated macro lens or a good cheap fixed focal prime and fit some extension tubes on it. The macro images you will get this way will blow the Sigma's macro images into the dust.

BTW, the Sigma is a decent lens, it's just not in the same league as the Pentax.

Regards
David