Judging will be done after midnight when the competition closes - until that point the judge has an open mind.

Don't underestimate the power of a photograph.

I share your deep disappointment.....

No John, it's the forum's rules and purpose. It's a photography site, pure and simple.

We can talk about whatever we want on facebook or Twitter, bearing in mind the laws of libel and other laws of course.

Which is why we keep away from politics and religion on this site.

There's enough to argue abaout when we stick to photography, so back to photography please guys before we stray too far.

Thank you.

If you set the camera to manual the display gives you a meter reading. The idea is to adjust the shutter speed and/or aperture to centre the readout.

If your studio lights are flash then the camera is simply giving you a reading of the ambient light, which is clearly too dark for the values set. When the flash goes off, for an instant there will be plenty of light. The shutter speed you have set is OK, so just adjust the aperture until you have the correct exposure. Forget the readout for this purpose.

Indeed so, in which case it's not really a discussion about the moral dilemmas of photography any more.

And so I talked muyself into the Pentax viewfinder, from Jessops in York yesterday and under £50.00
[IMG]http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff250/johnriley1uk/027QViewfinder.jpg[/IMG]
What a beautiful gem of engineering it is, a lovely 3 element Albada viewfinder with suspended bright lines. This is absolutely as good as the best Voigtlander finder, and in the past they have made some superb viewfinders.

It turns the Q, as expected, into a very viable eye-level camera.

It's a moral dilemma of course. On the one hand the photographer could leap into the fray, be beaten or worse and nothing would have been gained. At least by taking the photograph and walking away there is a record of a dreadful incident. This in itself could garner support amongst those who can do something about it.

In the fray, war photographers brave hails of bullets and walk oblivious amongst the mayhem. Personal safety doesn't come into it as they are absorbed in doing their job.

This isn't quite the same, but the photographer has at least preserved the message and brought it to the world. He is being quite brutal with himself over motivation, whether through honesty at his own failings as a human being or perhaps feeling a sense of futility and apportioning blame on himself where actually the blame lies entirely with those involved.

There is a Warranty Policy statement in Pentax instruction books. The K-5 book has this on pages 373 and 374.

JPS are the official Pentax repair house in the UK, so I would contact them to ask what the poicy is. This should avoid any misunderstandings or disappointments.