Sofi is just the latest of many cats that have taken up residence with me. In the 6 years I've lived here, she's the 19th. All females have been spayed and all males neutered.

I have 7 left but she's the only one that's allowed in the house. Pepe is my oldest resident at 5 years old but although he was neutered at a very early age he can't resist the urge to 'mark' everywhere, so he's banned unless there is a willing lap, then he's fine.

All of the others are outdoor cats, summer and winter.

Of those I've lost, I know the fate of only 4 of them. The others have just gone away never to be seen again. I hope they've just moved on to pastures new but one of the 4 I know was killed during an attack by three dogs. Most distressing as I saw it all and couldn't get to her fast enough to do any good. She died on the way to the vet.

Pepe's brother Izzy died of a suspected heart attack at only 9 months old, Dice contracted FLV from a bite from another cat, and Leo succumbed to the wounds he suffered in a fight with another cat.

She arrived whilst I was in UK and decided to stay. She was spayed recently and settling in nicely.

Pentax K-5 II + DA* 55m 1:1.4 SDM + AF540 FGZ - Daylight from window behind, shoe mounted flash, some using diffuser, others with catchlight panel.



K52_3854.jpg by Peter E Smith (AKA Mannesty), on Flickr



K52_3850.jpg by Peter E Smith (AKA Mannesty), on Flickr



K52_3838.jpg by Peter E Smith (AKA Mannesty), on Flickr



K52_3824.jpg by Peter E Smith (AKA Mannesty), on Flickr

From smeggy's research I doubt I'll be buying a K-3 based on those K-3/K-5 image comparisons. Thanks for that smeg.

Most of my photography nowadays is motorsport in poor lighting other than in the summer months, and gigs where the lighting can at best be described as abysmal. Even a 1:2.8 lens is not fast enough, I have to use 55mm/f1.4 or 31mm/f1.8. I sometimes wish I'd kept my K50/f1.2 lens. I did use flash once but as these gigs are in bars, It upset a few people, I prefer the atmosphere of the non-flash shots anyway.

24MP or not, if it's going to give me a noisier result, I can't use it, irrespective of all the new gismos it has. I prefer less noisy 16MP images which are more than adequate for me.

So for the moment I'm sticking with the K-5 series, I might even sell my K20D + DA*60-250 to fund a K-5 IIs body when they've hit rock bottom price.

Why bother selling a lens you don't use in order to buy another lens that you probably won't use much after the first week of ownership?

It makes more sense to me to sell the lens you don't use and put the money towards something you will use.

As it has a constant max aperture of f2.8 across the zoom range, there is no other lens that I know of that has a wider/faster aperture. In that respect it's fine. The unknowns are a: is the speed of focus fast enough? and b: is the IQ good enough.

All of these f2.8 medium to long zooms are going to be heavy and I'm guessing the Tamron is no exception.

If you can borrow/rent one, give it a try before buying one.

SRS have the Tamron at £599 and the Sigma (which has optical stabilisation) at £749. Whilst the Tamron is cheaper, my money would be on the Sigma.

Yes, but K20D to K-5 II is better.

It came from Amazon.es Gwyn, excellent service I thought.

You remember well, my son Richard bought a DNP dye-sub printer for the horse events he shoots. I don't think he does much of that anymore now that he has a 'proper' job since we closed our business.

I shoot images for a local hot rod racing community and I've been thinking of ways to produce images fast at the track. This Selphy CP900 fits the bill and produces waterproof and fingerprint resistant images in under a minute.

Most people seem to want only a momento of their day, not a masterpiece so a 15cm x 10cm postcard sized print is ideal and doesn't break the bank. For larger prints or canvases I can use photobox.es

The 108 sheet 15cm x 10cm media pack works out at a cost of just under 0.28€ per print.

Ordered yesterday (29/10), delivery scheduled for Monday (04/11), arrived today (30/10). Result. Good job I was in to receive it too.

. . . Selphy CP900 printer.

I'd appreciate any input from other users of this dye-sub printer.

A good result, and one that shows how much cleaning needs to be done to make your product look its best.

The detail in your shots above reveal that you didn't do much cleaning prior to the shoot.