I like the way you have kept all the shadow in. The contrast is fair enough, a bit severe but that's maybe what you were after. The only unfortunate thing is that the door itself is such an unattractive background, with its splodges and marks being quite distracting.

With a bit of Photoshopping that could be cleaned up if you felt that was necessary.

It's the whole frame and it's not had any HDR treatment.

The only adjustments done are a tweak to Levels, resizing and sharpening.

I'm quite happy using up to ISO 1600, it's only beyond that point that we start to see deterioration. It holds pretty well up to 12800.

This is my favourite from my current crop of owl pictures.


All comments welcome!

RussV, you asked about contractual obligations.

You'll find the answers in the Terms of Use (see bottom of page) which tells us that PU is an independent company with no ties to Pentax.

PU sprang from Pentax User Club and was the website provided to enhance membership of the club. Sadly the printed club magazine is no longer with us, but the site does provide a place for Pentax Users to get help and advice.

The Terms of Use define what the site is about in more detail.

Apology accepted, glad that we talked. Let's now move forwards and look forwards to a more harmonious future.

I can go with that, how about this for chillax:

I can answer that last point now, because I actually feel no ill will to anybody over anything. Life's too short. My best regards are me, and I mean them as well.

It's not what people are but what they do that leads to banning, in other words it makes no comment about them as people whatsoever.

I'm afraid I feel it is appropriate, so I'll beg to differ on that one.

Thank you DrO, a great demonstration of how to present arguments and even criticism without resorting to personalities and abuse.

That can be worked with.

The Mod team is actually very easy going and consists of Myself, Ken and Matt. Unfortunately Daniel hasn't got time to be with us much these days, but is there in reserve so to speak. Nigel is not a moderator.

We are all ordinary members, so when you think the members should have their say we're included in that as well. There is no pay, and we spend hours sometimes removing spam and solving problems, which we gladly do, including sharing our own expertise freely. All decisions are made in good faith. You might do differently, but that's life. On other forums I respect whatever decisions are made, whether I agree with them or not.

There are no agendas, no secret meetings, no plots.....just a love of photography and of Pentax cameras and lenses in particular.

I would urge everyone to just enjoy themselves on Pentax User (the title is a good clue as to what we're about) and wait and see what further features might be dreamt up by the team.