Now look, Shim, that's not what I expect. You are supposed to traumatised.

Seriously, thanks!

Looks like it's down to personal preference on my part from the consensus here. Thanks for the comments.

I've been a pro photographer for newspapers and magazines all my working life and ten years after retiring bought a dSLR. I think what throws me is that if I make a colour or black and white print, I pretty much know how it will appear to other people (I know the viewing light affect it but the brain compensates quite well).

With digital, I use a nice Eizo monitor, with Huey Pro calibration, I make my stuff look how I want. But when I view it on someone else's computer or iPod, it looks utterly different.

It's a bit dispiriting at times.

I only shoot raw, I don't know if that makes any difference but certainly in ACR I'm often pulling exposure back up to a half stop.

Lens wise I use the 15mm, 35mm and 70mm DA Limited lenses and metering multi mode. The slight over exposure seems to occur mainly on shots with a full tonal range.

I have a feeling that this might be by design as slight overexposure and reigning it in on raw can enhance the noise performance, I read.

Given the general exposure characteristics of the KD10, does anyone have any thoughts on the most effective auto bracket settings?

I'm not sure that an over setting is often necessary at all since many frames show slightly blown out highlights in the normal course of things.

Same here. I was only trying it out anyway but left the camera plugged in for an hour or two by mistake.

I find the card reader built in on my machine far more convenient normally so it doesn't matter. But it would seem to be normal (if inconvenient) behaviour.

I have the 35mm DA f2.8 which does me very nicely as a general purpose lens too.

But you can make out a case for any lens, nice for the photographer, less so for the wallet!

You do need to be much more focussed on what you want it for.

Just reading through again - was it you that sold me the lenses or was that your colleague, Chris?

I went in to SRS at Watford yesterday (9th April) and bought a 15mm f4 for £479. It's a lovely lens. I bought a 70mm f2.4 too. So that's me broke for a bit!
I knew the 15mm was going up but when the guy in the shop told me it was the last one at that price and why I was well aware of my luck being in that day.
Nice shop, the people there know their onions and are very friendly and helpful. I bought a 35mm f2.8 macro at the other branch last year and the 3 lenses make a nice set.
Testing the 2 new lenses out today - very, very nice.

I bought a DA35 macro as a general purpose and macro lens. I must say, it's a top quality item, razor sharp, compact and solid feeling.
I intend to buy a 15mm f4 and the 70mm f2.4 to make a fairly complete outfit, with the kit zoom for longer stuff.
As an ex-pro using Nikon for 35mm, I had a 300 f2,8 and 400 f4 Nikkors. Great lenses but so bulky, you only ever took them out of the boot when you knew you'd need them.
200mm f5.6 on the kit lens ain't great but with anti-shake and 800iso with Neat Image noise reduction, it gets a deal more use than my big Nikkors ever did. Mind you, I'm not working as a pro any more, so there is a difference.

Sounds to me like your camera has duff focus and needs adjusting.

Lack of sharpening on raw, camera movement, subject movement do not lead to an image being in focus at one point and not another.