As others have said or implied the composition of your photographs needs work. If you're serious about taking better photographs then take some time to learn the basics of composition. That time will more than repay itself. Here's one short article, but don't stop there, Google for some more and get some different perspectives on the subject. After you've read an article or two have a look at some other people's photographs you particularly like and see how they've made use of some of the compositional principles you've read about.

Once you feel you're comfortable with the basics a good book on the subject, like Michael Freeman's "The Photographer's Eye" might help you take it to the next level.

Sorry for the delayed reaction. Didn't see this post when you originally wrote it.

Firstly I like to shoot parts of the city (Edinburgh) with a long lens. Rather than a broad cityscape it's often more interesting to zoom in closer to particular features and when you shoot these against the sky the CPL can be used to intensify it and increase the contrast between sky and clouds as you might expect. I know you live in Glasgow which is (at least from what I've seen of it) relatively flat - so the opportunities for this kind of thing are possibly a bit limited, but in Edinburgh there are lots of high places to take these kind of photographs from. For example Arthur's Seat, Calton Hill and Blackford Hill to name just three locations I've used to get these kind of viewpoints.

However the CPL proved even more useful on a recent trip to the Highland Wildlife Park near Aviemore. Unlike a zoo most of the animals here have nice large habitats to roam about in so you really do need a long lens to get in close enough, however for obvious reasons some of these habitats are behind glass. I got some great shots of Tigers and Snow Monkeys here while there were a bunch of other photographers around with long lenses struggling to get decent shots because of the reflections from the glass. Especially during feeding time, everybody's trying to get some shots but there are so many people in front of the glass creating reflections galore. I saw a few others others just giving up trying to get decent shots in obvious frustration. At least two of those who gave up were wielding lenses far more expensive than my 55-300 and a CPL filter would have been a practically negligible investment compared to the price of these beasts. Shooting with the CPL at the right angle, the reflections magically disappear. Even if you can't get an ideal angle to the glass, you can often minimise the appearance of the reflections fairly effectively. I suspect they would be pretty hard or nigh impossible to get rid of in PP.

Even if I had no other use for the CPL it would have been worth it for this trip. When you take into account the price of petrol to get there plus the price of entry the cost of a CPL filter is really not an excessive expenditure to maximise the potential of your photographic results! I'd recommend one to anybody making a trip to a wildlife attraction with similar set up of habitats behind glass.

I haven't got around to posting any of these shots online yet but I may do so in the near future. I do have a bit of a backlog of images I haven't got around to doing the PP for.

I'd suggest Pentax certainly see the point in using a CPL filter with a lens like this because they have included a removable tab on the hood to facilitate operating one. They also produced a CPL specifically for use with the old FA* 250-600 lens.

Either version of the 55-300 is a bargain at the price, optically speaking. Unless you are the rare photographer who has no use for a telephoto lens I'd buy it for sure.

Too much compression before uploading to the web will do that to any photo regardless of how spectacular and amazing the original might look. Hopefully these super compressed versions is not what the wedding couple are actually getting.

As for burnt highlight, that picassa link isn't even working for me so I can't see!

I'll post to say my camera is perfect . In all seriousness, I have had my K-5 almost 9 months, taken well over 10,000 shots with it and not had anything that could be described as a QC issue whatsoever.

I can't say the same for the Tamron lens I bought alongside it instead of a kit lens though. The zoom ring broke and I had to send it back for repair under the warranty which took about two and a half weeks IIRC. Would still recommend the lens though - it's unbeatable for the price. You could buy two of them for the same price as one Pentax DA* 16-50 - which also has known QC issues.

Anyway, I digress. Not sure why this thread is in the film cameras forum, though. :

I always wondered why they stuck with the "EasyShare" brand for so long. It's one of the most bland, uninspiring brand names I can think of. In these days of instant printing direct from your compact camera and camera software with built in facebook connectivity etc. being offered by many other manufacturers it does nothing to distinguish Kodak from the crowd, either.

IMO the difference between a good lens and a bad one ('good' or 'bad' meaning specifically with respect to CA/PF) on the same camera and similar situations is so obvious and striking that it would be madness to blame anything other than the lens as the primary culprit.

Nice shot. If possible, some recovery work to the small area of blown highlights on the neck would benefit it. I don't normally have a huge problem with minor areas of blown highlights but in this case the contrast is so severe it's a touch distracting.

Okay I found the old thread here. So to correct my previous comments slightly one other forum member (GDN) had the same problem with a new sensor. Smeggypants also had a similar problem but does not state whether the sensor was new and thought the 'gunk' came from the brush. I think I can rule that out in my case because as I stated on the other thread, my wife used the same brush on her Canon with no issues whatsoever (and her sensor was far from new).

I posted a thread on this very forum at the time when it happened and IIRC I was not the only forum member to have had the same problem when cleaning a brand new Pentax sensor with an Arctic Butterfly. I seem to recall there were at least a couple of others. If this is not due to some kind of residue left over on the sensor from the manufacturing process it seems like an awfully large coincidence.