If I approached this one, my first feeling would be that I'd return at a better time of day when the building was lit. Then there would be no problem, and arguably the image would be more dramatic. A matter of taste and also of logisticsa - is it possible to be there at a better time? Is the building ever out of the shadows?

What you have done is correctly apply a technique to a situation. You have condensed the dynamic range so that it can be reproduced on a monitor or print. This image does not represent the original dynamic range, which probably we couldn't even see on our screens.

To be honest, no matter how much dynamic range a camera had there would need to be a corresponding range in whatever the viewing medium was. This doesn't really exist at this time, so HDR applied moderately is the perfect answer. You've done a good job.

The dynamic range of digital sensors already exceeds anything that transparency film ever offered or that photographic paper could ever reproduce.

I'd be interested to see examples of what sort of images are found to be a problem.

To be fair, this assumes that a "kit lens" is by defintion a cheap, poor lens. Don't forget that the 43mm f1.9 Limited is also a kit lens - it was originally only sold as a kit with the then new MZ-3.

A little early IMHO to be dismissing this. I expect it to be as good as all the other Pentax lenses - and that's a pretty high standard.

It's already been posted, so I'll lock this one to avoid confusion.

I've been steadily working through the profile pages to remove the spam from "Miss Julian" and others and we're now at the point where I'm not finding many, if any.

If you would care to check your Profile, please let me know if you find any spam that still needs deleting.

Thread now open for discussion.

I'm pretty much sold on the concept of the WR lenses - very liberating to be able to carry on shooting in the rain.

The focusing speed I've never had a problem with, but the range of this lens and the WR look very interesting.

It's an absolute bargain at the current price.

Not quite a focal plane shutter, but thanks for the link - it's ages since I saw that bit of film.

The instruction book will tell us as it still lists whether or not PZ is supported.