John will be able to comment more reliably than me here, but I think I've read that it is better in Photoshop to upsize by a small percentage each time (ie incrementally), rather than in one big go. I'm not sure what the percentage to aim for is, but others may be able to advise.

Jon

Message sent,

Jon

Last week, I joined a couple of friends and we went on a great half day city walk with Corinna from hairygoat.net - who does a wonderful combination of guiding you around the city but also offering photography tuition. There was a small group of us and we had a great time. She also does night time photography walks.

Best thing is.... she's a Pentaxian! Currently using a film camera but about to jump in either with K-7 or possibly K-5. After our walk, she now knows about SRS... commission please, Chris!

Here are a few shots from the walk - some of them obviously heavily manipulated, but others are almost straight out of the can. I was shooting RAW + JPEG with the reversal film mode for the first time - and rather surprised at how many of the JPEGs I used instead of RAW files: I rather like this setting.

Link to slideshow below. C&C welcomed too.

link

Best wishes,

Jon

I think there have been huge signs of a more concerted and coherent approach to marketing in the UK over recent months, and it's starting to be reflected in some of the magazine commentary too.

Some of the recent compacts have been very nicely designed (W90, i10) and a good step in the right direction of differentiating themselves by offering a product that simply looks good apart from anything else. I'm cautiously optimistic, especially if they can keep the stocks up for a while so that there is a coherent 4 SLR plus 645 range.

That said, some of their products don't compete with the best on offer (eg X90 - close but it's not the top of the superzoom heap), and I don't know how long Pentax can grow without coming up with a convincing competitor to the mirrorless EVILs.

Let's hope that there is more to come to back up the good intentions...

Your best zoom lens bang for bucks is probably to compromise on focal length and buy the 55-300 Pentax lens.

However, if you are determined to go to 400mm, then I think the only zoom lens you are likely to find at that price - and they don't come up frequently - is the Tokina ATX 80-400. They are only available secondhand. I have version ii of this lens, which I got for less than £300 on EBay, and which I like very much.

When you head beyond 300mm , the image quality does deteriorate however, and by 400mm you need to stop down to at least f8 or possibly more before you can really get decent results out of it. Wider apertures than that and you would be better off cropping an image taken with the aforementioned 55-300 lens.

There may be some Sigma options (135-400 perhaps) but I don't know that they get down to £300, and also not sure they are any better than the Tokina.

It might also be worth pairing an old SMCA* 300mm/4 prime with a 1.4X TC (which will be a very sharp combination, but prone to purple fringing). You won't have autofocus though.

First thing to note is that there is no underground from Knightsbridge to Gatwick - you will need to take the train from Victoria Station (easier and nicer to get the bus from Knightsbridge to Victoria). You have the choice of the excellent but pricey Gatwick Express service, which is very frequent and takes 30 minutes, or other trains which stop once or twice on the way, which are also very frequent, somewhat cheaper, and take perhaps 10 minutes longer.

Second thing is that I think technically you need to ask permission to take photographs on the Underground, but you are unlikely to be challenged if you use a compact camera. The light is actually pretty bright in most tube stations so you shouldn't need to go above perhaps ISO400. I personally would not use an SLR in busy central London underground stations, but have got some great photographs with an old 5MP Panasonic LC1 - given that was a complete noise-monster, I am sure that your ZS3 should be able to cope pretty well.

If you are into RAW and manual, I think you are right to stick to the bodies with two control dials. The K-7 is a superb RAW-shooter's camera and great value now. A secondhand K20D would be a good buy too.

Looking at the list of lenses in Doug's signature, I'd hope that none of them could produce that fringing, so either it's a lens that he's borrowed from elsewhere, or it's come from a compact (and as noted by another post in this thread, personal experience suggests that FujiFilm compacts are easily capable of producing this kind of fringing!).

Agree - my experience with the 85/1.4 suggests that it is astonishingly good value for the money,and this 35mm lens also seems to be very competititvely priced at about £250. I think the biggest issue apart from brand and manual focus may be bulk - with a 77mm filter thread this must be pretty huge compared to Pentax's own offerings at the same focal length. It's closest competitor may be the Sigma 30/1.4 - which is significantly smaller and arguably a more useful focal length.

First time I've ever seen this argument - but I have seen an awful lot of reviews that suggest the full frame 135 size sensors really need to be paired with really good lenses as they show up the slightest flaws. And looks like that was Paul C's experience too? I suspect that APSC is much more forgiving of legacy lenses that were perhaps not at their best around the borders (because APSC only uses the centre of the lens)?