Not sure what you mean by 'work better' and 'more pronounced'. The only difference I can think of is that for any filter that has a transition (e.g. ND Grad), the transition area will cover more of the frame with APS-C than with FF.

Steve

Interesting. Very interesting. The version you've all gone for - the darker one - is what it felt like to me at the time and what I was aiming to get in the photo. The other version - the lighter one - is closer to what it actually looked like to the naked eye. If you'd all gone for the lighter one, I'd now be questioning my artistic tastes!

Steve

My approach to keeping the house clean and tidy . Mrs L thinks differently...

Steve

Just a couple of comments. First, light is invisble until it hits something. That's why mist, haze, dust, smoke etc. are needed for seeing rays of sunshine (there is, of course, usually a fair amount of dust in the atmosphere). If you want to see rays of sunlight in a church, go to one that uses incense, it can hang around in the air for longer than you can see it. Second, rays of light will always converge on the source of the light, so rays of sunshine will converge on the position of the sun even if the sun itself is not visible. I've got a painting on the wall where the artist hasn't understood that last point, it's intensely annoying to me although to be fair to the artist most people just see it as a lovely picture (which it is) rather than noticing the dodgy physics.

Steve

Looking through the side of an ivy-clad arch in the direction of the evening sun. Differently processed images from the same DNG file. Do you prefer the darker or the lighter one? And why?

Any other thoughts and comments also welcome, as usual.

K3iii + F 135mm @ f2.8.

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Steve

Agreed, a good set of images.

I'm wondering, though - is the real benefit of the K3 Mono that it makes you think and see in B&W or is it that you actually get better images than a conversion from colour? I do understand the benefits in terms of resolution, but is that actually visible for these sort of images?

Steve

Well, I like these sunsets. They're sufficiently different to the usual type of sunset photo that I've come back to look at them several times and asked myself why they work for me. And I think the answer to that question is that they have stripped a sunset to its bare essentials - light source, darkness and just enough illumination to show what the sun is setting on but not so much as to be distracting.

As for the rule of thirds, just a couple of points:
1. Accoring to Wikipedia, the 'Rule of Thirds' appears to have started a couple of hundred years ago as a guide to the ratio between warm and cold colours in a painting. It was then suggested as a rule for other aspects of composition. But even then there was scepticism: "This rule, however, does not supply a general law, but universalises a particular, the invariable observance of which would produce a uniform and monotonous practice. But, however occasionally useful, it is neither accurate nor universal..." (Field, 1845).
2. Leonardo put the Mona Lisa dead centre in the painting and her eyes - which are its focal point - are three-quarters up the picture.
Personally, I go along with the quote from 1845. And if Leonardo can put his subject on the centreline, so can other folk (and that goes for Spad, too ).

Steve

Another vote of thanks to Flan and Mike. Software downloaded and installed but not used yet. I've never stitched anything before but I've heard about stitched macro... Focus stacked and stitched, might be something to do in those long, dark, winter evenings .

Steve

Other forums can be friendly, too . And even this forum has lost some members because of what other people have posted.

It would be sensible, though, to put discussion of Pentax lenses on non-Pentax bodies in a different section. And to have reasonable rules to keep discussion to Pentax lenses only rather than letting discussion degenerate into "Brand X's lens is better than Pentax", "Oh no it isn't", "Oh yes it is". Even this forum has some of that at times, although it does usually seem to fizzle out quite quickly.

Agreed. In fact, I think that camera technology has got to the point where any current(-ish) generation camera from any manufacturer can take a good image, it's the lens that really makes the difference (plus the photographer, of course ).

Have you thought about finding a sponsor who will donate a roll of film per month for a 'Film picture of the Month' competition? Catch the growing wave of youthful enthusiasm for film, recognition for those who have taken the plunge and bought a Pentax 17 etc. etc.

Steve