Digital photography is a very exciting way to produce images, allowing all sorts of control that previously could be difficult and time consuming in the darkroom.

I added digital photography to my way of working, but I have not eliminated film. There is still a case for both methods of working, depending on the final use of the images and other circumstances.

As the value of your film camera is relatively low, I would suggest that you keep it for use when appropriate, whilst at the same time perhaps adding a digital SLR to your kit.

The Pentax *istDS would be an excellent choice.

Andy, you can't leave us in suspense like that - what have you decided?

Thanks, Matt, I will try looking at the red channel.

It's given me a few other thoughts, so I'll check those and I might have a couple of questions later!

Thanks for the link, Andy, that was very interesting.

This is obviously a difficult subject, but I'm not persuaded yet that Adobe RGB will benefit my 8 bit colour images. I have used it in the past, and there has been really no discernable difference to my inkjet prints.

There does seem to be a bit of variance in advice from various sources. In essence, Adobe RGB is a wider colour space, containing more colours, and in theory allowing the full range of available colours in commercial printing.

I say in theory, because I have seen it mentioned that it is all very well, but you can't see the subtelty that you are trying to reproduce on a sRGB monitor!

sRGB will give a more restricted, but punchier, set of colours.

It would seem logical to use the same colour space for camera and PS CS. If you don't, the colour space will still be a restricted sRGB original and manipulating it in Adobe RGB will not create the colours that were not there to begin with.

Personally, I use sRGB because there is an argument that inkjet printers can only really cope fully with sRGB output. I like punchy prints!

Perhaps Pentax could provide the specific answer for you?

I thought it would be nice to have a really small digital camera to carry at pretty much all times, so I have settled on the rather smart looking Pentax 750Z. Sue's S5i was a bit on the small size for me, so the 750Z seemed appealing and has a very useful 7.0MP

And I'm very please diwth it so far, the pictures are full of detail, the colour is excellent and the sharpness just about right after my usual 50% USM.

However, I read the reviews first, and if I had taken any notice of them I wouldn't have bought the camera, would I? According to dpreview and various magazines the camera is noisy, not particularly sharp and poorly put together. I just don't agree with them!

I don't know if anyone else feels that, especially digital, reviewers are very, very harsh on the cameras they are reviewing? AP, for example, only really seemed to like the Pro models and maybe the Nikon D70 (although I haven't been that impressed with any of their test pictures).

I just wonder if there are so many perameters that they just don't have the time to really test the cameras. So, if say a Pentax had a fairly soft image that sharpened up beautifully with USM, maybe they don't try that. maybe they prefer a sharp-straight-from-the-CCD model that washes out highlights, but they don't try it on a high contrast subject, and so on....

Do you take any notice of reviews? Are they fair? Are they biased against Pentax or anyone else? :

Digital cameras ere getting much better in this respect, but there can be a shutter delay that takes a little getting used to. The best method IMHO is to allow the camera to focus, hold the half pressure on the relase button and then finally release the shutter. Most of the delay seems to be on the autofocusing part of the process, the actual shutter release being quite good. In dull light the autofocus will take longer to lock on and this won't help either.

I think we might have to live with the effect, but, as I said, it is getting better.

The shutter of mechanical cameras like the MX should be fired before storgae, and not left tensioned.

Much better to keep the camera in use though!

I presume you mean the Pentax software that is provided with the camera, and that you are connecting the camera to the computer? All the software you need should be on the CD that came with the camera.

The consensus seems to be that it is better to use a card reader rather than connect the camera up to transfer data. If you do continue to have problems perhaps you could explore this option?

Have you tried the Pentax site for downloading the driver you need?