Have it converted for IR use.

I'm between photography jobs this weekend and have nothing planned yet.

Every other Sunday I talked myself into taking images for a local banger racing venture, www.velocity-racing.eu

Most of the images in the galleries are mine. Last weekend I gave the Sigma 70-200mm 1:2.8 EX DG OS lens its first outing (images not on the web site yet). I'm reasonably impressed with it but I need to get to know it and how best to use it before I can get the best out of it.

If you have a look, you'll see that lighting is the biggest challenge and without flash I'd have no keepers at all.

When I read the title of this topic I thought to myself, I don't think I've made mine cry yet.

Just think of a car battery. It is made up of 6 cells, each having a nominal potential of 2V (approx). We'd all soon get a bit fed up if our batteries suffered early life failure due to one failed cell.

Eventually of course it will be one cell going high resistance that necessitates the (car) battery be changed for a new one.

To address your issue, I think that you'll be on a hiding to nothing trying to prove that one or more cells was defective, after you've used them.

Put it down to experience and move on . . . . to Eneloops.

The only thing I can find wrong with that report is that lenses much older than 1975 vintage can be used with the Pentax camera system. With the help of the M42-K mount adapter, lenses from the 1950's can be used very effectively.

It's a good (and glowing) report.

It's not likely to be the flash causing uneven discharge. The batteries are actually single cells that are connected in series to create a battery (of cells). There will undoubtedly be tolerance differences between individual batteries, some having a different electrical resistance from new.

When cells are connected in series, the current flowing through each of them is the same. It's the initial charge state that governs how long each cell will last under any given load conditions. The lower the initial charge, the quicker that charge will be depleted.

Best advice is to switch to pre-charged rechargeable cells (commonly, but inaccurately, known as batteries), like Sanyo Eneloop.

To prevent blurred HDR images of moving objects, a method that works for me is to shoot one well exposed RAW image, then use Lightroom (other RAW conversion software should also be able to do the same) to make several images at different exposures, you can then use these in Photomatix. Lightroom will export to Photomatix directly.


Some will say that my method is not true HDR, which is possibly correct, but it works.

SanDisk Extreme 16Gb Class 10 cards are £12.39 from 7Dayshop.com.

£11.99 each if you buy 3, so cheaper than 2 at the PCWorld price.

£10.69 from Amazon with free delivery to UK.

Sandisk Ultra 16Gb SDHC (like the ones you have just bought) are £8.49 from Amazon.

So £19 for 2 x 16Gb is not a bad deal but I think most would prefer the Sandisk Extreme range.

Isn't this going to be way too sharp for a portrait lens?

It'll surely show every pore, skin blemishes, and facial hair. 

It may well be a suitable focal length, but I think that too much post-processing would be needed to soften the pin sharp images.

Portrait lenses are normally designed to be somewhat soft wide open, as is the FA 77mm Ltd lens and I believe, the FA* 85mm.

I don't do portraits, so I may be completely wrong.

I think you could reasonably claim that this lens was described inaccurately as it states clearly that it has a Pentax mount.

As it seems to be an M42 screw threaded lens, which as far as I know was not unique to Pentax, the listing is misleading.