I voted yes.

My first DA*16-50 had sticky SDM from new. It was very reluctant to move but if I used the lens on a camera (K100D) without SDM and wound the focus backward and forwards a few times then the SDM would then work on my K10D for a couple of days before it seized up again. It was replaced by the supplier and I have had no problems since.

I think this thread is a great idea. I have had concerns about the longevity of the SDM system and purposely not bought any other SDM lenses but hopefully this discussion will produce some firm results and either prove me wrong or provide some feedback to get the issue sorted.

Glyn

Edit - Just to say I'm now on my 3rd DA*16-50 but that is because I destroyed no.2 in a fall. No SDM problems with No.s 2 & 3.

My pleasure

Glyn

I think just making the dancer transparant will only unmask the the "O" in vision. I think the idea is to get a dancer shaped hole in the "O" of vision.

I'm no expert and I have only tried this on PSE7 so it might not work on PSE5:

Put the layer with vision next to the layer with the dancer with the dancer to the front.

Turn off all but these two layers and use "merge layers" in the layers menu.

With this merged layer use the quick selection tool to highlight the dancer and press delete. This should create a hole the shape of the selected dancer.

Turn all the other layers back on.

I have only tried this with graphical shapes and not text but looking at your screen dump I think the "Vision" layer is not text so it will probably work.

I hope this helps,

Glyn

I wonder if the OP is using "wide" as in focal length and not aperture?

I guess its possible that the lens is a bit soft at 18mm, particularly with the wide open aperture used for AF, which could upset the AF. My K10D was particularly sensitive to this although not with the 18-55mm but the 50mm f1.4 and sometimes with my first DA*16-50mm.

Glyn

I have a Sigma 18-50mm DC ex, non-macro. When it first came out it seemed to get good reviews but, and unfortunately not unusual, once a few people had got their hands on it there were some significant complaints about purple fringing. Certainly mine suffers badly from this although it only really appears on subjects with hi-contrast transitions.

I can't comment on the 17-70mm but I think it is a much younger design.

Glyn

Edit - I can't quickly find a review of the Pentax fit version but a review of the Canon fit version can be found here and this highligths the purple fringing issue.

I think somebody needs to stand up for the occasional contributors. I'm not sure I completely qualify but although I have been around here for nearly 4 years I only have 196 posts, including this one, so I guess that makes me an an occasional. I submit to both competitions fairly often and have won one weekly competition and have therefore judged another.


If I remember there was a lot of discussion, including a lot of discontent, when the weekly competition moved out of the forum into the gallery and this lead to the conception of the forum based fortnightly competition. I think both competitions serve this community well.

I think we should see the weekly competition as a way of getting people into the forum. Ok there will always be those that don't want to stray outside the gallery but even if it introduces one or two that is one or two that we would not have otherwise got. I think applying any forum based constraints will bring the shutters down. You don't have to participate in both competitions. If the gallery based competition is not working for you then why not only inhabit the forum based competition?

What are these worries about the amount of work the judging takes? Not long ago we used to think it was a complement to the judge if their subject attracted more than around 30 entries. I was really pleased to get 38. Those that choose to participate should know that they have a responsibility if they win. If this is not clear then perhaps the rules need to be publicised a bit more. As already mentioned its a lot easier if the judging work, where possible, is spread throughout the week. Tongue-in-cheek, if your worried about the number of submissions then set a less inclusive subject although I guess there is a very fine and difficult balance needed to make this work. There can be no acclaims for the setter of a subject that attracts no submissions


Glyn

Agreed. I have the Samsung versions of the 100mm macro and the 35mm f2 and am very happy with both.

I have just done a quick, and not very exhaustive, test with the Samsung 100mm and I think it works fine in both the hyper program MTF mode and lens correction mode on the K-7.

In the rather poor lighting this afternoon setting the hyper program to MTF from normal mode changed the aperture from f2.8 to f4.0 which I think sounds reasonable.

The camera also let me turn on lens correction, which the manual indicates you can only do with DA, DA L or D FA lenses. The camera also took longer to display each shot so was doing something although I can't see any difference in the results and, to be honest, would not expect to in a good quality prime lens.

So my conclusion is that having a different lens-id makes no practical impact on the use of the lens.

As an aside I'm also using the Samsung equivalent to the Pentax AF-360 flashgun and I'm very happy with that as well.

Glyn

I guess its largely academic but the lens-id in the exif data is different.

The Samsung is 4-56 and looking at the lens list in ExifTool suggests that the Pentax is 4-52. (I only have the Samsung version to try )

The Pentax digital camera utility that came with the K-7 does not recognise the Samsung lens-id. The version of PhotoMe that I'm using (0.8B2) does not recognise it either but at least gives the tag value.

The only area of doubt I have is whether the Samsung version is recognised for the lens correction function in the K-7 and MTF program mode in the K-7, K10D & K20D. Neither of which I've tried with this lens.

Glyn

Beware though that there appears to be two variants of the 1.01 firmware.

The only way to check these appears to be by inspection of the exif data of a shot using a tool like PhotoMe where it can be found under manufacturing notes.

The early variant of V1.01 shows DSP firmware & CPU firmware to be version 1.01.00.05. The later variant shows 1.01.00.09 for both elements.

Rumour has it that the 1.01.00.09 variant fixes the green vertical line at high sensor temperatures problem and possibly some other things that have been causing K-7 returns.

See the links Here.

Glyn

Edit - added link

Thinking about it slow shutter noise reduction probably makes no difference to this test. SSNR is looking for low level noise differences between the actual shot and a shutter closed shot. A hot pixel, having such a large change in brightness, probably will not be classed as noise and not be removed.

So the test becomes: Set a low fixed ISO, say 100, (to avoid high ISO noise reduction), set the camera to manual focus and take a couple of shots with the lens cap fitted on the lens. Inspect the result at 100% magnification or better. If you find anything then check if it is in both shots and then also check the same point on a recent normal shot.


Glyn

Edit - removed comment about non-white hot pixels as results of testing not consistent.