It's just gone six and the competition is now closed. I've reviewed some of the entries already but I have to catch up with today's ones so I'll post the result later tonight around 9pm.
Thanks to all for the superb entries and goodness knows how I'll decide on the winner.

John

+1 Same as Matt here too.

John

Yes indeed, this is the last of the fortnightly competitions in this form. Some had issues about hosting the photographs so having them in the gallery section overcomes that hurdle. Some also thought that two weeks was too short a time period when a new image had to be produced. Hence we have the new monthly competition which has just started in the gallery to replace this series.

JR has already selected a theme to get the new monthly competition up and running so the winner of this competition will not have to perform that task.

John

If you were planning to enter you have just over 24 hours left. Should you be one of those worried about winning, for once you won't have the fear of having to select a new subject and judge it!

John

Have a nice trip - Hopefully you'll find some sunshine the other side of the jet stream!

John

I guess it could be a quality issue. The camera takes the light reading with the lens at full aperture. If the lens stops down more than it should while the photo is being taken it will be underexposed of course. I will have another experiment to see how it exposes at full aperture and work out what is going on with it.

I had a Canon mount version of the Sigma 10-20 previously and didn't have any issue with that one (it's since been sold along with the camera.) Perhaps I should have returned the Pentax mount copy under warranty but at the time thought it might be just me or the camera. It's only when I added the 8-16 and 12-24 the characteristic became more obvious but even then the images could be recovered in PP to some extent.

It isn't six years old yet so if it does have an inherent fault it should be covered by the Sale of Goods Act to get it fixed/replaced I suppose .

John

The York PC World had a K-r twin kit (18-55 + 50-200) displayed in their cabinet last Saturday at about £450

John

As far as I know, most cinema film releases would have been transferred from a 35mm negative so the film stock must exist.

I once used Rank to convert 16mm films to Super 8 and given they produce theatrical cinema releases they might be worth trying (if they still do such things.) It wasn't an issue for them that I was a private person using their services rather than a major corporation. The reduction was done onto negative film and the positive produced from that.

John

As happened when the still running 'Heritage' competition (please don't forget it, you have 'till Wednesday!) was announced someone almost immediately posted a picture in which the EXIF data indicated it was taken some time ago. The same thing has happened here with the 'Night' competition, so just a reminder that the intention is that you have to go out and take the photograph after the competition is announced. Back catalogue entries are no no's!

John

I think Sigma weren't too happy with their 10-20mm either which is why they brought out the new redesigned version with a fixed f3.5 lens. So worth investigating that version perhaps.

Getting the right picture with the 8-16mm is down to experience and technique but if the lens lets you down it doesn't help. Shooting a huge mountain range can make it look an insignificant pimple in the distance if you are not careful, but as to images being useable without looking at histograms and compensation dials too much both the Sigma 8-16mm and Pentax 12-24 pass that test with flying colours. I suspect the new Sigma 10-20 f3.5 should too as it is an even newer design than the 8-16. If someone has one perhaps they could comment?

John