Body for K3 at $799, vs. KS2 at $699, Not sure how to read your note, the title suggests the K3 is "now" cheaper than the KS2, but your text says "not" cheaper. The cheapest K3 I could find on there was $100 dearer than the KS2 body-only.

On a side-note, the downside of generic shopping cart websites and multiple camera body colours ("Strawberry Cake". Really?) is that it takes five pages of search results to show what is in effect five or six cameras.

I've been thinking of changing my Kx for something better, even though I doubt I've even scratched the surface of what the Kx can do. First I was thinking K5 when the K5-II came out, then K5-II when the K3 was released, now I'm thinking maybe K3 when the FF is out. I guess it's just like any technology product now, whatever you buy already has its replacement planned.

Cheers. Next year I must try to give myself a bit more time so I'm not just stood at Llangollen station for everything. I'm hoping to do Classic Transport Weekend so that might give me a bit of a chance.

Popped down to Llangollen on Friday afternoon, still thinking I should have gone the previous Friday for the better weather but at least the rain had stopped.

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[IMG]http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a149/hpfirenza/Llangollen%20SSS%20March%202015/IMGP6914a.jpg[/IMG]

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[IMG]http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a149/hpfirenza/Llangollen%20SSS%20March%202015/IMGP6953a.jpg[/IMG]

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[IMG]http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a149/hpfirenza/Llangollen%20SSS%20March%202015/IMGP6922a.jpg[/IMG]

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[IMG]http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a149/hpfirenza/Llangollen%20SSS%20March%202015/IMGP6888a.jpg[/IMG]

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[IMG]http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a149/hpfirenza/Llangollen%20SSS%20March%202015/IMGP6893a.jpg[/IMG]

Comments and criticism welcome.

Thanks for that. I've read a couple of similar ones, to be honest it was really the question of whether I'm expecting too much from the camera that was concerning me.

Thanks for all the comments everyone. I will do some playing around and see what I can do, and if I get something that looks worthwhile I'll post it here and see what people think. I've been looking at the various stars and trying to get familiar with what's up there - I do walk quite a distance to the pub so on a clear night I can get a lot of practice.

I have a film SLR - the noise thing is a good point, but of course it does add the hassle of having to develop (or get someone to develop) the film. I do also keep a look out for older lenses and will have a look at the Samyang lens - I've heard people talk of them before. OGPS looked quite expensive, but I followed a link to someone selling them at £149, still a fair amount of money but not terrible if I decide to go further with this, though I would need to add another body - it just seems wrong to be looking at changing that (especially as a used Kx seems to have very little value) when I've barely touched on what it can do.

OK, thanks for that. I get that I'm not making it easy for myself here in an area where there are streetlamps where you don't want them and none where you do, just wanted to have an idea of what's possible. Good to see images from a similar model, as I think most of the stuff I've seen is perhaps from something much higher spec.

I've seen a lot of very impressive photos of the night sky (not just on here, and many taken with other brands of camera), and have done some reasonable captures of the ISS flypast as a trail, and I'm thinking of getting a bit more into this as the weather gets a bit better. I have a Kx and either a kit 18-55 or a Sigma 18-200 lens to use, and while I do keep scanning the classifieds for a newer body, I'm also conscious that there's a lot the Kx can do before my skill level overtakes the camera (to clarify, I mean it can do more than I know how to use), so I don't want to just upgrade for the sake of it. Also it's just something I find reasonably interesting - I'm just taking photos from the back garden, not thinking of building an observatory any time soon.

Am I expecting too much to get decent images without terrible amounts of noise, or is the Kx capable of doing this? And can someone point me to any good tutorials on what post-processing I should be doing? I'm not thinking I can pop outside, set the tripod up, and come back ten minutes later with a killer image, but I don't want to waste time if all I'm ever going to achieve is a noisy image where the stars can't be distinguished from the noise.

I asked this on another thread, and was pointed to Deep Sky Stacker which I have downloaded and will experiment with, also the O-GPS unit was suggested but doesn't work with Kx as far as I can tell. I thought I'd start a separate post because (a) I was interrupting a quite separate discussion, and (b) thought I might get more general views. Or is everyone using K5 or K3 nowadays?

I fully agree - whether it's a competition or any other reason for posting a photo, I'd rather hear "that's a bit blurred" or "you could improve that by doing xxx" than total silence. I haven't entered any competitions, but I guess the more the entries, the more time it would take to give feedback on all of them and so much is just down to a matter of opinion - one person's "quirky" is another person's "badly framed".

I was talking to a chap that's part of a local camera club and did think about joining, for me the main issue is that their meeting is on an evening when I'm already doing something else. Another local one used to hold regular exhibitions in the library but don't seem to do that now, perhaps because the library closes at 1pm on Saturdays, their last one was somewhere else in town but not advertised anywhere other than on the door to the (slightly out of the way) venue.

I'll have a look at Deep Sky Stacker - I've had some reasonable results on ISS trails using StarStax, but I see some of the shots others are getting and wonder if it's possible on Kx. That price for the GPS isn't bad, unfortunately it doesn't work with a Kx - or doesn't say it does, at least. I have been considering an upgrade to a K5 of some sort, but seems a little unwise to be upgrading until I've got to a limit with this one, which I think is some way away.

ETA - I just had a look at Deep Sky Stacker. Wow, that's some complicated stuff. It will be interesting to see what it can do on relatively basic equipment.

Am I wasting my time trying to get some decent astro shots using a Kx and either kit 18-55 or a Sigma 18-200 lens? I've done a small amount of playing around based on settings that others (with other makes) use, but I'm getting some quite noisy images. I don't want to go to the expense and time of investing in telescopes and the O-GPS, should it be possible to get something worthwhile without?

I did a shot last night, for example, which has quite a few red dots on it as you can see below. Does this imply an issue with the camera, or is it simply what I should expect? This is North West UK, from the back garden, with no post-processing. I was playing around a little with the Pentax Camera Utility and noise reduction but this is a crop from the jpg from the camera.