There is no suggestion that that will be marketed in Europe so who knows? I'm not prepared to take out a second mortgage to buy one in any case

Thanks every one. I may just use my polariser then, or buy an ND2 to go with it.

We are still at the planning stage for the trip but the idea is to fly into Portland and then tour Oregon and Washington for 3- 4 weeks. The coast obviously forms a major part of that. I really want to drive the Pacific Coast Highway right down to San Diego, but my husband wants to concentrate on just these two states. It is so unusual for him to come up with a holiday destination that I'm not going to argue! We're hoping the immigration queues at Portland will be better than at Seattle, hence flying to Portland. (KLM fly there direct.)
We may go over to Vancouver BC if we have time, but I'd really rather concentrate on OR and WA rather than do a rushed visit over the border. Sadly we will be too early for much of the Cascades - the roads will still be closed, which mean we will miss out on Crater lake for instance.
However I am told that the weather is often very good in May, so I am hopeful of some good photos.

Next problem will be which lenses to take .

I'm not sure this is the right place for this topic but here goes.
I am going to the Pacific Northwest in May. There are lots of waterfalls to photograph.

I am not a fan of cotton wool water, but I suspect an ND filter may prove useful. But which one? How many stops should I choose? I don't want cotton wool but can live with a slight silky effect.

I have the Cokin P filter system, but it doesn't have to fit that. Do Cokin do a set like they do for ND grads?

Or can I just use a polariser?

Yes, because of the sensor size every lens is affected this way, which is why modern, made for digital, lenses sometimes come in unusual focal lengths.

In that case he needs to download the appropriate update to read the PEF files in Photoshop.

Clean it when necessary, but learn how to change your lenses to minimise the crud getting in there in the first place:

Switch the camera off before removing a lens. Point the body so the lens is facing the floor, and keep it that way while changing the lens. Change lenses is as dust free an environment as possible. Use your camera bag if you have no other options.

Be careful with the rocket blower, try an Arctic Butterfly, and if that doesn't work try a sensor pen (not a lens pen!) or some other cleaning method such as Pentax's own.

What card and card reader are you using - if it it an SDHC card then the reader may not be able to cope with it. In which case try connecting the camera to the computer directly.
Have you been able to download jpegs?


PSE 7 comes with Adobe Camera RAW converter, not the best maybe but a good starting point. If you are using windows XP or Vista you should get a window asking what you want to use to download the photo - one of them should be PSE7, in which case just follow the prompts on the screen. To process a RAW photo that is in Organiser click on Full Edit to open the editor and Camera RAW will open automatically.
I recommend that you disable Adobe Photo Downloader - it can be a right pain.

I don't have a problem with Andrew's profile location, it sits nicely in it's allotted space and takes up 3 lines. Maybe with other browsers (I use Firefox) it is a problem.
I am not techie enough to comment further on his post though

There is a Kodak with very similar specs too, though it looks a bit different.

I was planning on posting today in the hope we would get some more news.
I'm glad Fiona was able to continue on the journey, and things aren't quite as bad as first thought.

What went wrong in Vegas? I've never been - we've always avoided the place tbh. We loved the drive from Arizona through the desert of California to Santa Monica when we did rte 66, and saw no reason to divert to LV.

LA is not everyone's cup of tea. Where are you staying? We're lucky having friends near Pasadena we can stay with and just do quick forays into the city if we feel like it.

Looking forward to the photos!