In Lightroom, you don't 'save' anything. An image is imported into its catalogue and any changes you make are stored as you make them, the original file is not changed in any way, so it doesn't need to be saved.

You can revisit an image years later and undo the adjustments you made, and start again if you wish. You can't do that with a saved JPG/TIFF unless you keep the original as well.

Also, if you are happy with the adjustments you've made to one image, and you have many similar images, you can apply those changes to all of those other similar images. A job that is not so easy with a sved JPG/TIFF.

A quick wander round the garden this morning yielded this:-

Pentax K5, Sigma EX DG 180mm Macro, Pentax AF160FC flash.

1/180th, f16, ISO 160, hand held and it was windy.


K51_8260.jpg by Peter E Smith (AKA Mannesty), on Flickr" class="comment_image" />

As you are a student, does your college or university have a camera club?

Don't be worried about going out with your camera. A Pentax camera on the end of 18 inches or so of strap makes a pretty formidable weapon

My main use of macro is to show parts of objects that we can't see normally with our eyes, or put simply, show small things . . . big.

My subjects are more or less limited to insects and flowers, but I do have a wide variety of both.

Other possible subjects might be jewelry, coins, stamps, sugar, salt, ice, anything small.

I think you may need to do some specific testing to determine if there is some kind of problem.

Also, if the lens was supported on a bean bag, and therefore very still, you should have turned SR off as per the recommendation for tripod use. The Pentax SR system is designed to compensate for movement when the camera is hand held, not when it's supported in some way to limit possible movement.

To test, you'll need to take several shots whereby you can see that the green hand symbol in the viewfinder is on solid before taking the shot. Then look at those images in PhotoMe or another EXIF reader (PhotoMe has not been updated since 2009 although it's possible that camera/lens data has been updated since then).

As Matt has described, you pressed the shutter button too fast that the SR system hadn't had time to stabilize.

The clamp adds a little more friction to the focusing barrel to prevent lens creep when used vertically.

It's probable that different copies of the same lens behave slightly differently. On mine, when the clamp is on, the focus ring can be turned, but the focusing barrel (the one with the scale on it that you view through the window) does not move.

It would be unwise to use auto focus with the clamp on as it will introduce more strain on your camera's AF motor.

You have a PM re: Exp. 7x backpack.

Calm down dear!

Simple answer, Photoshop has some image manipulation capabilities that Lightroom does not.

Lightroom is an image development tool. Photoshop is a graphical creation/editing tool.

EG: Lightroom lacks the 'warping' tools to give models a virtual tummy tuck, wider/thinner nose, less pointed chin etc.

Yes, we can remove skin blemishes in Lightroom, but if you need to change the apparent physical dimensions of a particular subject, or even just replace the sky in an otherwise perfect landscape shot, you need Photoshop.

I would love to see these, and other photography related tools, in Lightroom, but I think Photoshop CS/Elements sales would suffer too badly for Adobe to consider doing it.

If Adobe would port all of their Photoshop based image manipulation tools into Lightroom, IMHO it would make all other image editing software redundant, Lightroom sales would go through the roof and Photoshop sales would fall through the floor because there are a lot more digital photographers on the planet now than there are graphical designers.

I haven't used that particular software, or even heard of it until now. From the sample images on their site I'd say that there are other programmes that will produce similar, if not the same, results. Topaz Labs Adjust, Detail etc. spring to mind, and are a lot cheaper for the Windows version, a steal at $15 for the Mac version.

If I had a Mac, I'd buy it, but not the Windows version at $279.