If you're outdoors in daylight, there is probably enough ambient light without flash, so the flash will not freeze the water.

Set the lowest ISO and a very small aperture (f16 or less).

That should force the flash to provide most of the light for the picture, and hence freeze the action.

Don't be afraid to use manual, and experiment.

G

Kim,

You said: "......... the only "normal" camera that is accurate at very low light levels is the LX and even seems to cope with reciprocity."

My point is simply that I don't believe the meter of the LX is designed to make allowance for reciprocity failure. That's all I am saying.

I certainly wouldn't wish to disparage your skills as a photographer.

Regards

George

Kim,

In all the stuff I have read on the LX, I have never heard that the meter attempts to compensate for reciprocity failure. I should be most interested to see if you can point me to some corroboration of this theory.

I've been trawling astrophotography sites, but turned up nothing. I'm sorry, but I believe that this is a figment of your imagination. If I'm wrong, I shall eat humle pie and apologise profusely.

George

Kim,

Exactly.

Different films behave differently. The best the LX can do is to progressively increase exposure times in low light conditions, but whilst the degree to which it does this (if it does) might work for some films, it won't for others.

I think you have been lucky with the emulsions you have used.

G

Kim,

You don't know what reciprocity failure is. It's not wrong exposure, it's a failure of the film to respond in a predictable manner when very long or very short exposures are made.

Different films will fail to work properly at different time settings, and as the camera has no idea of the characteristics of a particular film (all it knows is the ISO rating of the film) there is no way at all in which it can cope with, or compensate for, reciprocity failure.

George

Kim,

Nothing can cope with reciprocity failure, which is all to do with the chemicals making up the film.

The LX is a great camera, with the best meter of any camera ever made, but even it can't change the film chemistry.

G

All lenses except K and M are fully useable in any mode on the D and DS.

K and M lenses have to be used in manual mode, or they won't stop down when you fire the shutter (this means that you CAN use them in other modes with the aperture wide open).

The camera has to be set to allow the shutter to fire when the lens is not set to A (this is a menu setting).

To meter the light, you press a button (differs between cameras - check your DS manual) to set the correct shutter speed for the aperture you have selected on the lens. You can of course alter this shutter speed if you wish to.

You can also use the DOF preview lever to show in the viewfinder how much more or less light you need. This is like the meter on an old camera.

The D user manual doesn't mention this at all because it only became possible when the firmware was upgraded. So for a D, don't use the original firmware.

The DS manual (apparently) doesn't make clear that setting the camera to use lenses off the A setting has no adverse effect on using non-K or M lenses. Some people thought you had to keep changing the settings whenever you switch lenses. This is not so.

Incidentally, a K lens is any Pentax K bayonet lens without a suffix after the word Pentax (for instance SMC Pentax-M). These were the original K bayonet lenses, and are generally regarded as being the best made.

George

I paid about $400 for mine a few months ago, but they are hard to find, so $500 may be acceptable.

I think the newer lenses are manufactured using a higher degree of automation than the old, hence the lower prices. As for quality, I can't say. You can't beat the silky focussing of the older lenses, but the aperture rings on my FA lenses turn more smoothly than the ones on the A lenses.

George

I haven't used the 24mm, but I have the 20mm and find it to be very good, though not cheap.

G

John,

I would agree that the DS allows you to do just about anything you could want to. The difference is that access to various things is slightly easier on the D. I think I have mentioned before that continous focus is only available in Sport mode on the DS, whereas it is available in any mode on the D.

It's probably fairer to say that the DS is geared towards making life easier for novices, but it still perfectly useable by "advanced photographers".

G