I seem to recall when the Pentax 28-200 came out, the Pentax actually outperformed the Tamron.
Sounds odd.. but the smc coatings, controlled flare better, was marginally sharper at the edges, and for some reason the Pentax version actually focussed closer..
so maybe there are reasons to pay a little more..

and yes the tamron and pentax were sister models, with tamron manufacturing it with a couple lens elements and coatings made to Pentax specs...

when I shoot video on my camcorders, I af first lock on, then switch to manual... I the scratch my head and wonder about the need for af during video recording on a d-slr...

Flagship is always the flagship until the new flagship comes along.. means nothing to me really.. there are prototypes on the shelf, drawings on the board, and my guess is... Pentax is waiting on Sony for sensors to release a 24 mp aps-c or a ff model... if so then the next release could be months, not years away...

I think Pentax will announce another model up from the k5II sooner than people think..
the k30 didn't get held for photokina, photokina is not the center of the universe... just because it didn't get announced today... doesn't meant it won't be announced by Christmas...

so a q10 and adaptor turns my 400 mm sigma into the hubble telescope... interesting...

I should clarify, this is another example from hollywood of the lighting I like.
that is Marlon Brando and Vivian Leigh.

here is another one:
streetcar named desire:

As I progress into film making more and more, I find myself working hard to leave many of the rules of still photography behind. I am instead focussing on the lighting of early hollywood and the filmmaking of guys like Kubric.

so I am working towards developing my own style.

So Algernon, I am thinking you're onto something with the head.. on it's own it does seem odd, but what if I had added a few other mannequin parts into the scene? an arm? or a foot?

no need to say sorry, Frogfish.
the solid blacks to solid whites was typical of the era I emulating with the lighting...
eg: (gaslight)


as for centering..
Stanley Kubric
and yes The Goth Girl in the sepia is a stretch.
As for cut off edges, I do have some room to recompose in my originals, but this 16x9 crop is to keep in with the film look I was hoping for.

In breakfast at Tiffany's you'll see the same style lighting with the vertical blocks used to accentuate depth in the frame... I kinda wish I had been able to source out some beaded curtians for the left hand side, but I suppose I could photoshop some in later if I find them somewhere..

concept shoots are about exploring bounderies, and I appreciate the feed back, positive and negative.

that is a great point actually.
the great thing about studio lighting and building a set, is there are no accidents.
if you look closely... you'll see two things..
one, if all the light in the scene was to be coming from a large bright window, then logically the subject would be lost in a silhouette... in order for there to be so much light on the subject, there must me another light to explain it.

the lamp is there to distract the viewer's attention away from the the fact that a high powered halogen lightsource, and a studio strobe from a second angle, was needed to make the shadow patterns on the wall and fill in and fill in a large swath of what would otherwise been black shadows. (like behind and under the chair) no lamp to trick the viewer and the scene loses it's 1950's hollywood set feel....

same with the candle.. look close enough and it becomes obvious that the flowers were lit with a snooted strobe, but the Candle makes you think it was lit with candlight.. the candle on it's own would not be lighting the cusions to the right, with a f-stop that would yeild such depth of feild...