I've temporarily removed the e-mail address whilst I ask you if you're sure you want it in there - every spambot in the world will be crawling all over it if it's on show in the forum.

You're better off accepting offers by PM and listing your Pentax related items in Classified Ads.

If you want the e-mail address back just rerpeat it in a reply to this, but steel yourself for the spam!

Welcome. "Lens Buying Addiction" is something that some members seem to suffer from, but no names....

The zoom you list is not a true macro lens, so depending upon how small the models are you want to photograph, perhaps try before you buy if you can.

If you have the kit zoom that comes with the K-r that will focus closer than the lens you mention.

A true macro lens will usually be a 50mm or 100mm and will be labelled macro. Pentax also make a 35mm Macro. The longer the focal length, the more working distance you will have for the same magnification, so again it depends on how big your subjects are.

What sort of scale models are you photographing?

Some chores are a good thing, as long as there's time left to actually be a child for a while.

Work could include studying....

Probably a better lens then is a good place to start. The compact may look better because the image is already quite heavily processed, but with the right lens and Photoshopping your DSLR will be better.

A shift lens will not help. You cannot do anything about the glass other than focus beyond it and boost the contrast in PS. A wider aperture than the Sigma 18-250mm offers will probably help more.

I suppose they took it quite well really.

Now it does.

Genuine Fractals is probably no better at resizing (and resizing is not just a simple any-program-can-do-it thing) than using the tools in CS3.

If you upsize then resample as Bicubic Smoother. If you downsize (say for Web) then maintain sharpness by resampling with Bicubic Sharper. This is reputed to be as good as Genuine Fractals and you already have it.

Web use has to be sRGB, so I use that throughout. I can tell you that a recent competition shot (A3 print) was declared "definitely from a RAW capture" by a very experienced judge/commercial photographer. It was in fact an sRGB JPEG capture at ISO800 with the K20D.

An ND filter simply reduces the overall amount of light, so has no effect on contrast.

However, the glass is the problem and it may be scratched and dirty and will certainly be an optical mess. So, wide apertures will defocus the glass and keeping the camera wello away from touching the plane will reduce vibration to the minimum. High shutter speeds may dictate high ISO values.

I'd remove that "protection" filter as well as it's not helping quality and is unlikely to afford much protection. The lens hood is always essential. Failing that - small plane, fly low and open a window....

Maybe the problem is thinking that things need to be upgraded? What is wrong with Photoshop CS3? I use CS2 routinely and have no particular wish at this moment to upgrade it as it does everything I need it to.

CS3 is such a powerful tool I would suggest trying to learn how to exploit it. Using it to print from seems a bit of a waste.