Just got two of the first five pictures accepted that I have uploaded. The other three are still 'pending' after two and a bit weeks. As for the site itself?

1. I suppose I'm happy to get my first pics uploaded!

2. IQ is not very good

3. I have 3 PC's, all running IE8, the site works to a degree on 2 out of 3 of them, on the third it won't run at all even though this is my most powerful PC and has no trouble on any other websites

4. It is absolutely full of software bugs

5. I can get it to run on Chrome on the third PC, but the text and graphic quality is appalling

6. I hope they haven't paid their web developers anything for producing this rubbish

It would be interesting to get views from Pentax on this, but I doubt whether we will.

Regards
David

Welcome Lloyd, I enjoyed your first pictures and look forward to seeing more!

Best wishes
David

The DA L 18-55mm lens is excellent optical quality (take a look at the pictures by morpheus71 in the gallery).

The recommendation above is not necessarily correct as the DA L version is optically identical to the DA version. I have had excellent results with this lens which is sharp and typically 'Pentax' in terms of colour and contrast. I always rely on my eyes if focussing manually and have had no issues with the lens. I think the other guys above are basically correct in stating that many lenses focus past infinity and I would also guess that unless you are unlucky and have a 'bad' copy of the lens, there's probably nothing wrong with it.

Regards
David

Usually it should be just a quick dust with a dry microfibre cloth/tissue or a blow with the Rocket Blower - it should not need more than this.

Best to avoid wet cleaning if you can.

Regards
David

Thanks to you all for your advice. I guess it depends largely on how good the pics are and how many votes they get.

Regards
David

You can do it with tweezers, or anything small and rigid that enables you to unlatch the metal clip that holds it in place. I don't have any special tools but managed it no problems.

Regards
David

Not sure if the K-5 is the same as the K-x and K-m in the viewfinder dept, but with these cameras it's pretty simple to remove the focussing screen, clean it and put it back. It's held in place by a small metal spring bracket that is shaped to fit around the sides of the screen and that clips it to a lug behind. Unclip it and pull it forwards; you can then remove the screen. It's a bit fiddly, but not too difficult.

Naim, I think the second one is actually better, but I can see what you mean by having the light shining through the translucent flower. The suggestion I would have to avoid the blown area is to either use a weaker light with an appropriate exposure, or to knock the exposure down a stop or so and adjust in post processing. You should be able to get an acceptable result with the ight shining through the petals with no blown area.

Thanks John, much obliged.

Regards
David

Hi all, I have uploaded my first pictures to the PPG now it's up and running again. They were loaded 2 weeks ago (almost) and are still 'Pending'. Is this normal? How long does it usually take for pics to get accepted or rejected?

Regards
David