OK, I'll start one - competition entries only in this thread from now on please (well, until it's over anyway!).

Don't forget - this competition is for photos taken during the next 2 weeks only! Oldies from your archives will be disallowed. Sorry to get tough but that's the rules!

Nice one Mac - I'm not envious at all!

Looking forward to seeing some pictures from the beast.

Hello Stefan, welcome to the forum!

And well done for being the first to use this new section. Most people have introduced themselves in the past but those threads tended to get lost amid the others in the general photography / chat sections - which is why it'll be quite nice to have all these in one place.

I too came to Pentax via the K10D (although I had/have a Pentax Auto110 SLR that hasn't had a film through it in years). I've since added a Pentax MX so I can use (some of) my lenses on both film and digital. I also prefer primes to zooms but sometimes a zoom is more convenient when I'm in a hurry or just snapping quick record shots of something.

We've got a few Dutch members so you should feel quite at home.

Entirely my fault - really sorry! I pasted the wrong link into my last post and didn't check before adding comment (the perils of having multiple windows open).

The one I meant to link to was this one which covers the SLRs and the vast majority of Optios. The one I actually linked to was used with the earlier Optios and has a different profile on the Mini B side - mea culpa!

I still use Photoshop 5 which is positively ancient in software terms but continues to do the business for me. It won't open RAW files so I process these first in Pentax Photo Lab (that came with the K10D) and convert them to TIFFs (sometimes JPEGs) before opening in PS5 for further manipulation.

I'm running an 18 month old mid-spec PC with Windows Vista and find that PS5 absolutely flies with no problems.

Later versions of Photoshop have added some quite nice features (not least the ability to work with RAW files directly) but I've yet to feel I'm really missing out as I can achieve about 95% of the things newer versions can do.

Photoshop is expensive but I've certainly had every last ounce of value out of mine.

Hefty1 Advertising PLC needs a product shot to appear in the national press for their biggest client; ACME Conglomerated.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to take a picture that will sell squillions of product YYYYYYYs and earn us all lots of money to buy new Bentleys with.

The product can be absolutely anything you like; from baked beans to barn conversions (even cameras ). Even imaginary products are fair game for this competition.

I'll be judging this one based on how much your picture makes me desire the product you choose - for instance, I'd want a food shot to make my mouth water etc. Taglines/slogans will be permitted if you wish but are not compulsory and won't earn any extra credit - it'll be down to the picture as always.

Good luck everybody - competition will close at 6pm (GMT) on Wednesday 12th November.

I promise not to peek!

I wasn't expecting that! I thought Galoot had it in the bag this time out but I'm dead chuffed to be wrong!

Thank you Dr Mhuni, and all of you for your kind words - I only hope I can do as good a job of the judging next time.

As for:

Nope. Just took the picture, downloaded the RAW file, turned the contrast down 1 notch, resized and saved as a JPEG. Nothing fancy at all - no filters, no curves, no levels, no sharpening or saturation malarky...

I'll have a little think and post another competition presently.

I like the last one - it does have a "turn of the century" feel which I think the first three don't quite manage to capture. That's almost certainly down to the blurring which, as you say, is quite typical of using a tiny aperture. Good work!

Quite sure - Pentax picked an existing pattern part for the K10D that just happened to be manufactured for Minolta cameras in the first instance.