I bought Franzis' Denoise and it does seem to be comprehensive. I haven't had to use it much, but can give reasonable results with the default setting. Perhaps sometimes a little too much softening, needing to manually select less. But there are a lot extra controls which I haven't had time to even look at properly yet. Certainly good for the price.

However, I do have an issue with Franzis, who could be deemed "less than entirely honest".
I refer to their "SHARPEN Projects", which looked interesting at first. Then I realised the ridiculousness of their claims, two examples in particular. One of children at a party; the "sharpened image" shows wisps of hair in perfect sharpness. Yet the "so called" original is so blurred that there is no trace of anything capable of being recognised of what could be a hair in need of sharpening - FAKE.
The other example is of a ballet dancer flying through the air. The "sharpened image", perfectly crisp and sharp, shows she is wearing some black see-though fabric. Yet the original has so much motion blur that it's unclear what this grey smudge even is, let alone a sheer fabric - FAKE.

If Franzis are going to stoop to such tactics, then they should at least use more discretion and not over-do the fakery to the point of absurdity. They obviously think we are morons, to be easily taken in. I suggest anyone thinking of purchasing from Franzis, not to part with any money until having done a good free trial first. They are obviously not a company to be trusted.

Thanks Jules, that's explained a lot.
Don't quite understand why I didn't find that first page!

I feel much the same about my 18-55mm kit lens (K20D) as in this post from February:
https://www.pentaxuser.com/forum/topic/cheap-wide-angle-zoom--39647/p-0
I'm not satisfied (it's an earlier version) and it lacks contrast.

I was interested in the comments about the Sigma 17-70 and think this would suit my needs.

I read about one type with an option making it better for Pentax cameras? It didn't register at the time, or I didn't understand it.
But I've seen some which appear to be just basic and others with various terms: OS, HSM, DC, Macro.

Can anyone shed some light on what they all mean, and do they have a significant effect on price / IQ?

Thanks

Last time I was there 5 years ago, some electronic things, tv camera etc. were marginally cheaper. But not worth the possible hassle if it were something where a warranty was needed.
That was when Japan was a cheap holiday, 290 Yen to the pound. Now it's 140!

Nick, Your pictures are a bit aimless, but that's fine you're just starting out, they show the camera appears to work OK.
So what to do now?

As other advise has stated, of course get the basics under your belt.
But I always advise to have a purpose. Nobody learns by just taking pictures. You need to have something to aim for, a particular effect or type of image e.g. high and low key portraiture lighting. And when you don't get what you wanted, you find out why. And that's when you start learning.

Secondly, do try black & white. When you can produce good B&W images, your colour ones will be great.
(The sole purpose of some images is the colour, but that's a different matter.)
Without colour to help define shapes, a B&W image is reliant upon composition, contract and lighting. Mastering these is easier without colour getting in the way.
And you might just get hooked on the timeless quality of B&W

Consider developing your B&W film yourself, it's not difficult and you don't require all the equipment and space printing needs. You can develop and scan your negatives in a couple of hours.
And you control the process. For example - image 9, you may have intended the negative to have been thin (underexposed) but the processors just average everything, instead of a deliberately dark print, that's what you get.

You liked image 15, so have a go at improving on it.
That monitor/TV some may say is intrusive, but it does provide bordering and focus attention to her face. However, that white "blob" draws the eye out of the picture, as does the bed linen below it. So try moving the camera up so that the TV fits in picture from top to bottom. And if necessary put some dark paper or tape over the "blob".
Next, the other bed linen on the right and lower are a bit too bright. Try shielding off some of the light from the window to darken these down. The shielding will have to be quite close, out of frame but not removing light from her face.
Try adding extra light just to her face. Direct light from a small mirror, but avoid harsh light (not generally good for female portraiture), spray deodorant or something on the mirror to soften the light. And be careful to avoid a shadow under her nose.
A wide aperture will shorten the depth of field (amount in focus) and focuses attention, but renders less quality. It may not be necessary to focus exactly on the eyes, but they must be sharp. Experiment

Good luck.

I've been writing a reply during the day, just come back to it, clicked on preview and the whole lot has disappeared!
Start again.......

Getting familiar with the lens' in this category is on the agenda. I've only ever previously use prime lens', but the 18-55 is well suited to most of my needs now and I do use the full extent of the zoom facility all the time so a similar spec. is what I will look for when finances permit. Although that 17-70 does sound .......

Other than for record keeping snaps, I only use the built-in for fill-in and usually about a stop down as I don't like fill-in to be apparent. In the set-up described, I use a pair of flash bounced into umbrellas and a flash bounced into an aluminium shade as a key light. With this set-up it's generally f8-f11 @ iso200.

Yes Chris quite right. I'll see what I can find, but unfortunately once I get an image saved into P'shop I usually ditch all the originals.

Focus accuracy is not in question, I have checked that.
Taking DOF into account and/or selecting the best of a series for the DOF I need, there no issue there. And I've already got the AF in hand - best to let the AF pull in (nearer) rather than push out for most accurate AF.

I was expecting such, and I do agree with you. I had practical experience many years ago with a medium format, the lens' of which were seriously lacking in contrast. Trying to compensate during developing and even using the hardest paper never really compensated and the results were always a lacking.

Yes John, generally a touch of unsharp is par for the course as the last thing done. But when selective sharpening is needed I usually use the high pass filter method and then apply it with history brush. But it would be nice to find an easier one than doesn't effect grain/noise.

Thanks for all the comments.

In the search for better IQ and questioning the need for an upgrade from the kit lens (K20D), my heart sank a little after discovering I have the mkI 18-55:
link

I should say that most images are destined for internet use, I do not often need to print images and even then rarely larger than A4; so my demands are minimal really. The K20D & kit lens are of course a vast improvement over the 4MB compact I had been struggling with previously; noise reduction being the major benefit.
Better IQ to start with has meant less processing time, however there hasn't been the level of improvement in finished images that I could have expected.

A few years ago I moved from CorelPhoto to Photoshop and appreciated a subtle improvement in IQ, a smoothness and more of a quality feel to final images. So now I'm looking at equipment (I don't want to blame it, it's probably me )

I see so many really fine images here and elsewhere, images that "look" like what one would expect of a high quality 300dpi print, but of course they're not, they are are being viewed at less than 100dpi, yet with lovely tonal quality and pin sharp with no hint of acutance.
Occasionally I hit the mark but not often enough, and rarely up to the standard I see here so often.

Sharpening low contrast areas leads to over cooking the high contrast areas, but as I invariably capture at the largest size and highest quality settings and final image often resampled 10% to 20%, acutance gets lost.
But I do wonder if I would be better off with a better lens and then perhaps shoot at an image size nearer to the intended final size.

On the other hand, it's not just sharpness. I know the lens could be better in this respect, but when for example I've taken a shot (with flash) of a full length garment at 18mm and at about 3 to 4 metres distance, then zoom in at 55mm and can see individual fabric fibres, the lens isn't too bad. But there's something lacking!

Any suggestions please.

What I haven't seen mention about so far is the clearance of funds.
When you call your bank after 3 days to ask if a cheque has cleared, and they say, "yes"; actually that means nothing - you are not protected.
I don't really understand why they use the term "cleared", it's wrong.
It means the cheque has gone through the system, but it does NOT mean the funds have been transferred; that takes several more days. Usually up to 8 days from presentation to actual transfer of funds.

Your bank can tell you that a payment has cleared but if there's not enough funds in the payer's account to cover it, you will find a CONTRA in your statement. I always ask if the funds have ACTUALLY been transferred OUT of the payer's account and irrevocably INTO my account.

So what we need now is a definitive answer, and here it is on YouTube

One thing to consider is how you organise and use your computer.
I loath and detest drop-down menus with a passion. If you're like me, don't get a mac. I rarely even use the "Start" button and explains why I have over 70 short-cuts on the desktop.

I have used a mac, and initially thought the idea of having mac's version of PC dll files switchable for fault finding, a good idea - until I actually had to do some fault finding - infuriating!
That was a long time ago, but more recently I had to buy a lap book pro (or something like that) for my son doing graphics and animation at Uni; who of course use mac software!
Having seen him use it, across, down, up, new window, scroll etc...
I thought, "some things don't change".
On the up side, being a poor student in digs, it serves him well as an extra radiator to keep the legs warm (uncomfortably warm actually).
Now he intends to swap to PC because he can get the massive amounts of computing power he needs at an affordable price.
And, he has now actually admitted that he's looking forward to moving to moving back to PC - YES!