Lilly,

Were you shooting RAW or JPEG?

It's too late now for this picture, but RAW captures a lot of highlight detail that would be blown out by a JPEG.

G

Spot on. I like nothing better than a nice blank page, myself. Cuts out all those silly arguments about soft JPEGs.

G

I really like the bridge shot. Very punchy.

And the man and his dog is OK, too. Keep in the chap on the left, I say.

Keep 'em coming.

G

Benji,

Don't take this too seriously. Pentax users tend to dislike Canons for their size and weight, and resent Canon users for their assumption that other brands are inferior. We know otherwise!

No sensible person disputes that Canon equipment can produce very good results, and of course the range is broader than anybody else's.

G

PS: Actually, Canons are themselves pretty useful as sledge-hammers.

I find sledge-hammers are best for Canons.

G

Ah, but they do ask violinists if they are using a Strad. or a Guarneri. Of course, some don't have to ask!

G

The two 1:1.2 lenses are certainly pretty soft wide open, but this makes for lovely portraits.

Stopped down they're pretty sharp; it's misleading to suggest they are soft at normal apertures.

I wouldn't change my K version for the world. As I mainly use it wide-open (there's little point in having it otherwise), there would not be much benefit in getting the A version. However, if it's going to be your only 50mm, the A version would obviously be a better bet.

But this is a bit off-topic as Pete was referring to the 1:2.

G

Some great pics there, chaps. Well done.

G

Perhaps you could endeavour to answer my points instead of being gratuitously rude. But I do appreciate that it might be more difficult. Being offensive and making absurd and sweeping generalisations is much easier than addressing the facts.

Nonetheless, it's true. Something that can't be said of most of your statements.

G

Square pictures may be necessary for MF cameras tethered to tripods, but they are totally unnecessary for handheld cameras which can be quickly oriented vertically or horizontally.

Almost all square pictures need to be cropped. This means that a square picture wastes pixels, and therefore disk space.

In other words, it's a thoroughly bad idea.

No idea what you mean. But the K10D doe have a button permitting RAW capture as well as JPEG.

Why? This is a studio camera feature.

Why? K10D shows image in correct orientation.

Why? Photographers don't want to walk around with a laptop strapped to them.

Why?

Just adds to complexity and expense without much benefit. In today's money an F1 would be about UKP 15,000.

Why? Most people would never use this.

What do you mean?

Virtually impossible without putting shutters in lenses, which would enormously increase their cost.

Wireless sync with what? If you mean wireless flash, the K10D has it.

Because there is absolutely no requirement for it. Hotshoes supplanted pc sockets in 1970.

It's not on the K10D because it would add very little benefit. The 2 sec delay with lock-up meets 99% of people's needs 99% of the time.

If you mean that it can be difficult to reach the stop-down button on an ancient Takumar screw-mount lens, then I suggest you stick to Spotmatic bodies, which were designed for Takumars. If you are going to use a modern camera, fit a modern lens.

This is an auto-focus camera (like almost all cameras for the past twenty years). But you can change focussing screens.

Because AF cameras need two signals to take a picture. The first is to focus the lens, the second is to trip the shutter. A cable release can't do this.

You keep mentioning gimmicks without giving any examples. What gimmicks are you talking about? Incidentally, I can't think of anything more gimmicky and superfluous than on-board perspective control.

Perhaps, but the cost would. Your spec would result in a UKP 10,000 camera that weighed about the same.

No deep thought is right. Most of these points have no merit; almost all demonstrate a near-total lack of knowledge of small-format DSLRs (Pentax in particular), and most indicate that you need a Hasselblad, which means that you are contributing to the wrong forum.

If you really want a camera with all these facilities, then be prepared to pay vastly more money for it than the very modest amount that Pentax asks for the K10D.

G