Not sure what you mean, but I just dial it in using the exposure compensation control. As the setting is persistent I don't have to change the setting until the situation changes.

It is the FA lens. I have one. Excellent lens for the price. Very light and compact, too.

Hmmm I'll have to have another go at this, methinks.

For the curious, here is a shot which shows what his makeup looked like. It has not had any PP whatsoever other than a resize for the purpose of uploading.

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

Really? Look, I mean no disrespect to DOIKs efforts at all, they are remarkable in their own right and certainly show more skill with certain aspects of PP than I possess. I'll be the first to admit I'm a beginner. However, to my mind he hasn't demonstrated that the blown highlights in this image can be rescued as what he has done is essentially used a mirror image of the detailed side of the face to fill in the other side.

There are several reasons I don't particularly like this approach (for this particularly image, away) and wouldn't use it here myself if I had all the PP skills in the world.

Firstly the subject's makeup was far from symmetrical (I have other shots showing this clearly, they're just not as good in other ways... mostly because there were so many people milling around it was very hard to get this guy against a 'clean' background). Therefore, why would I want to represent it that way? One poster mentioned the makeup is less interesting because you can't see the detail - to my mind it's even less interesting still if it's just a copy of what you can already see.

Secondly, one reason I liked this shot is that I felt his expression had character... but of course his facial expression is not symmetrical either and making it so only drains much of the character from it. It makes him look 'kinda goofy' for want of a better description.

Thirdly, the light falling on his shoulders and upper torso now clearly doesn't match the light falling on his face, which makes the whole thing look a touch unnatural to my mind.

Fourthly, his 'messy hair' and beard has basically become a mirror image on either side too, which only compounds the effect of making him look unnatural.

Yes, the job DOIK has done is very good in it's own way, but it's also very obvious on any kind of close inspection and I still prefer the original, blown highlights and all. No doubt it could be improved upon further in terms of modifying the lighting etc. with further effort, but I suspect the 'mirror image makeup and expression' effect would still put me off and lead me to prefer the original.

The patterns on his face are not tatoos, but blue (and white) face paint with base wash of blue basically all over his face (I don't think wash is the right term as I'm no face-painting expert but you know what I mean). Does that explain the 'strange hue' or do you mean something else?

Yes, go to 'Memory' in the Rec. Mode 5 menu and make sure the "EV Compensation" box is ticked.

Once you set the exposure compensation it should stay at the value you set it to in every exposure mode but full auto, until you decide to set it again. With the default memory settings it should even stay after turning the camera off and on again.

I find myself increasingly using -2/3 to -1 stop of exposure compensation with the K-5 in many situations. Every camera has quirks you need to get used to and learn to compensate for when appropriate.

This is a great image. I admire your dedication to put together 93 images! I'm not sure I'd have the patience.

I have literally no experience with composite images, but would it be possible you could acheive a similar result with a much wider lens using a much smaller set of focus bracketed images, as the out of focus areas generally fall in fairly well defined areas of the shot? I'm not questioning the way you did it, just thinking out loud about methods for lazier persons like myself.