Your pic of the Snow Leopard is outstanding. I just feel for the animal, it should be living wild, not caged.

John,

You still haven't got it, have you?

Let me put it plain and simple:-

You have a problem with your camera, get it fixed, or get it changed.

If you are going to move to Nikon, tell us, and we'll not waste any more time trying to get you to understand that your problem is with your camera, not your lenses.

Got it now?

Regards,

John, I think you have a problem with your camera, not the lenses. If you are going to stick with Pentax, why sell them.? Similarly, if you plan to switch to Nikon, don't be afraid to say.

If you could just admit to yourself that you have a duff camera, and get it sorted one way or another, your lenses are good for many years to come, unlike your camera.

Tell me, do you have the camera set to centre point focus, or the green auto position? If the latter, that's probably your problem. Change it to centre point and retest your lenses. Also, does it have the most up to date firmware?

I can't help but think that you are going about fixing this problem entirely the wrong way. There is another post in your other thread re the FA35 from a user who had a similar, if not the same, problem. Pentax fixed it.

Regards,

Direct flash, no matter what the source, can often be described as "just harsh, flat and horrible!"
You need a diffuser, or preferably, a hotshoe mounted flash and a diffuser to soften the effect of the flash.

If you want to continue with the popup flash you may have to make your own diffuser. Diffusers for 'proper' flash units vary in cost and include Sto-Fen Omnibounce, Lumiquest Softbox, Gary Fong's Lightsphere, bubble wrap, milk containers (washed and dried), and ordinary white paper or card.

How's your imagination ?

I think two words can explain why Canon and Nikon have come to the fore in photographic hardware. . . "Marketing budget".

This includes all the "giveaways" made to pro's to tempt them to switch. Who wouldn't if it cost nothing to do so?

To add to John and Matt's advice, I would actually favour the *istD. I switched from the DS to the D beccause it has a few more "professional" features including:-

PC flash socket, none of those annoying auto-scene modes, TTL flash control (both the DS & D have it, but not the later DSLR's), an optional battery grip, more compatibility with older K and M lenses.

Whichever you choose, say goodbye to film. You'll not use it much, if at all, afterwards.

You may need to make an investment in software too.

To set your diopter adjustment, remove the lens, point the camera at a bright light source and adjust the dioptre until the black frames in the viewfinder appear sharp. Job done. Refit the lens and repeat your focussing tests.

Pentax DSLR's are mechanically different to their film cameras where aperture control is concerned. The body lacks the coupling to determine what aperture is set on the lens. That's why it only really works as you'd expect when using manual exposure and metering modes.

Welcome to the forum Charlie.

First, Is your lens manual or auto focus ?

If it's manual focus, you'll need to turn the focus ring to focus on your subject.

Also, the aperture ring will only have any effect when your camera is set to M (manual) exposure mode. In all other modes the image is taken at full (wide open) aperture.

What focussing difficulty are you having?

Shouldn't you be getting rid of the *istDS, not the lenses ?

Surely if most don't work on it, that might imply a problem with the camera rather than several lenses.

HDR = High Dynamic Range

To use an old Artizen image as an example:-

Imagine standing inside a dimly lit tunnel, with a view to the end of the tunnel and a sunny outside world . . .

How would you make one exposure to get the walls of the tunnel (almost black), and the view out of the end of the tunnel (in bright sunlight) correctly exposed.

Answer, you can't, not without some very, very expensive hardware. So you make two or more exposures to get each element of the scene exposed correctly, then use HDR software to mash them all together to produce one viewable image.