I though I had gotten off scott free because my K-5 always worked perfectly from day one, no sensor stains, focusing issues etc. Then the Tamron 17-50 F/2.8 lens I bought along with it broke. It's like something bad just had to happen becauase it wouldn't be fair on all the other K-5 users otherwise.

Not sure I would have said it was a 'lack of assessment' on my part. I was aware the EV range was huge, I didn't have a grad filter to hand (actually I don't own one - yet), and due to the extreme contrast between sky and land I was not sure if exposure compensation would help (no doubt a judgement I will get better at with more experience).

Having established the above (for what it's worth - possibly not much) it came down to a choice to take the shot or not to take the shot, and as I wouldn't learn anything from not taking it that would seem like a stupid choice.

As mentioned in my post, the PP I did was intended mostly as an exercies, so again I could learn something from it.

It is a RAW converter, yes, not a full editing suite like PS. Basically it allows you to carry out the kinds of editing tasks which are best carried out on a RAW file before it's converted to JPEG, such as adjusting the exposure and white balance, attempting to restore overexposed highlights, and so forth. For other editing tasks beyond that you would then have to export the photo to another program like PS or GIMP.

For any easy way to view your RAW files as thumbnails, try downloading a photo viewer like XnView. This is actually pretty good software for organising your photo collection as well as viewing it. I personally use it alongside RawTherapee and GIMP, and between them these three applications cover 99% of my PP requirements. The main download link for XnView is here.

(If you don't get on well with XnView there is another application that does roughly the same thing and is more popular called IrfanView, but personally I don't use it and prefer XnView simply because it runs on Windows, Linux and MacOS and I use all three.)

I have been using 'unstable' development releases of RawTherapee for the last couple of months, so I'm delighted that finally a 'finished' version has been released. I've just been playing around with it for a few minutes at most, but already I've noticed it is much faster than the development releases!

I've tried a few 'free' RAW development applications and this is by far the most powerful. In short, it was already really a fantastic program and the extra speed and stability will just make it truly spectacular.

If you're look for good RAW development software without the cost of commercial packages, look no further. Get it HERE. For a complete editing suite, pair it with GIMP.

I also shoot in RAW+. I will be the first to admit that this isn't the greatest photograph in the world and certainly nothing nearly as good as Prieni's, but I think it's a decent example of what you can rescue from a RAW file. The colours in the sky were very dramatic and as you can see the original JPEG totally failed to capture that, plus the foreground landscape is too underexposed to see any detail.

The second version was created from the RAW file more as an exercise than anything else, to see what I could get out of it. It was done entirely using freeware and open source software. First 5 different exposures were created from the original single exposure ranging from -2 to +2 EV using RawTherapee, thus 'faking' a bracketed series of exposures. (Edit: Actually it might have been 7 different exposures ranging from -3 to +3, I can't remember for sure). Then Picturenaut was used to merge and tone-map the exposures. Finally GIMP was used for some minor finishing adjustments.

There may well be a far less convoluted way to get a similar result but I'm very much sill just a learner when it comes to PP so I used what I knew!



Original JPEG:

[IMG]http://i1204.photobucket.com/albums/bb411/msitaylor/SunRays1.jpg[/IMG]



End Result:

[IMG]http://i1204.photobucket.com/albums/bb411/msitaylor/SunRays.jpg[/IMG]

Whoa! I'm glad I pounced on it while it was still £375.00 on SRS. It's back up to £549.00 now!

I actually really like the Pentax Q as a concept. Small enough to carry the camera in one pocket and ALL your extra lenses in another. A two-pocket system. It has appeal because interchangeable lenses potentially give it great versatility and I could carry it with me all the time, including situations where I would never have my DSLR kit on me.

The sensor size does not bother me from this point of view. Anything this compact will have to have a small sensor, and that's perfectly acceptable for many applications. Viewed side by side at typical 'web' size (say 1,000 pixels wide) photos from my K-5 and photos from my Samsung compact are practically indistinguishable in quality.

However, from my perspective the product as offered has two major problems:

1) It's much too expensive for what it is - for me it would be very much secondary camera for everyday use when I have to leave my K-5 behind and the price is much too high to spend on a camera for that purpose.

2) To offer the versatility I'd want from it a 'proper' telephoto zoom and a true macro lens would have to be offered (a rectilinear UWA zoom or prime would be nice too but not essential). I could assume they will be offered in the future but that assumption would be far from safe. If the product bombs, further lenses may never see the light of day. In that eventuality, I would, from my point of view, have wasted my money on a product that never lived up to its potential.

On the plus side, time may solve both of the above problems. But until it does, a Q will not be on my shopping list, so there is zero chance of my being an 'early adopter'.

You probably know this already but... Realistically, because Pentax hired an advertising/marketing agency, the agency hired a photographer, and the photographer happened to use a D7000. This probably happens all the time and the likelihood is that promotional shots for cameras are rarely taken with the same brand of camera as a result.

However, they should really remove the EXIF data when posting such shots online so it isn't quite so obvious.

I'm not sure exactly how many shots I get on a 16GB card but I do know it's a lot more than the K-5 estimates as I have noticed this on a few occasions. As Anvh said it's probably because the K-5 is estimating based on a worst-case scenario, which I consider to be a sensible approach.

Ironically as we were just discussing the build quality of the Tamron, the zoom ring on my has just slipped out of position and stopped working. I'm going to have to return it under the warranty.