I would never have a go at Chris or his staff. Can't believe others have

I'm just seriously puzzled over why the price hikes are so massive! I understand that currency has something to do with it, but I have wondered if Pentax/Hoya have used this as an opportunity to restructure pricing - perhaps to make the lenses seem more "serious" for the "all-the-gear-no-idea" market?

If it is 100% down to currency, I wish Pentax would just say so! If they don't say then I can only assume there's another agenda at play... (which would be a great shame).

I wouldn't mind so much if my take home pay had gone up by a similar ratio

No K7 for me then...

Matt

Mike, the other thing you could use is the QP-card. I have a pair of the little colour cards. They are very useful - and I use them when I require accurate colour matching.

Otherwise, I generally don't bother - and rely on Silkypix
There is some leeway in ACR with the colour tuning/calibration parameters, plus the hue/sat/lum for each of the 6 primary colour regions.

But to give a more accurate response I'd have to run up ACR... haven't used it for some years

Matt

Normally you set the lens to the "A" position and adjust the aperture with the rear e-dial on the camera
(Trying to adjust the aperture ring on the lens is far less convenient as you have to perform "stop-down metering". Just use the "A" position!)
Matt

I've used the Expodisc with very good results. On the *ist-D it was in use all the time (the *ist-D has an excellent and very quick way of capturing a custom WB with a dedicated button).
It gives the same results with the K10D & K20D, however, I find that Silkypix provides a very good WB control - you can pick a neutral colour and even skin tones - and that generally produces a very pleasing result.

I've even got to the stage now where I manually tweak the WB in RAW processing - it's not that difficult, especially for landscapes, to know which way to push things

The standard AWB can be a bit off at times.

The other thing, apart from WB, is the colour reproduction of the RAW converter. ACR can be a bit "neurgh" from a colour point of view and can require some tweaking. LR isn't too bad, but nothing beats Silkypix for colour control - the film emulations normally give the "pop" that I was missing even when WB was approximately right.

Perhaps this is what you are both finding - some RAW converters tend to aim for a very neutral & flat colour reproduction (expecting you to shove things around in PP). You can, of course, generally adjust colour settings and save as presets. For example, there are many good free presets available for LR that push it the extra bit

Hope that helps!
Matt

Jim,
Difficult to answer for you... but here are some thoughts. I have the SMC-F 100/2.8 macro. It's a lovely lens, and gets used very occasionally for true macro work (flowers mostly). However, its main use was for low light stuff. And I bought a DA*50-135 (before the price hike :shock and that is utterly sublime! So, the macro now gets used hardly at all
I'm split between selling it on to help fund an iMac, and keeping it - since when it does get used for macro (like on extension tubes) there's nothing else that can touch it for super macro and quality.

It's a heavy little lens and not one that gets carried around much. But it is very, very good (sharp, contrasty, flat field).

To get 1:1 macro you'll be around 31cm away. Check out Bojidar's site: http://kmp.bdimitrov.de/lenses/primes/short-tele/F100f2.8-Macro.html

HTH!
Matt

The only lenses to watch out for (IRRC) are the Ricoh lenses
They have a little pip on the mount that can get stuck on the DSLRs
Matt

I have the Lee Foundation Kit + Cokin Z-Pro ND Grad kit.
The Lee holder is very well made (much better than the Cokin).
Couldn't afford Lee filters
Matt

Congratulations Dan

The 50/1.4 is quite different from the 50/1.7
The 1.7 has a flatter field - more suited to copying work etc. And as such it is extremely sharp - quite likely sharper than the 1.4.

However, the 1.4 really excels when it comes to creamy bokeh that the 1.7 just can't match (perhaps down to differences in aperture blades etc). Primarily useful (if you'll excuse the pun) when doing portraiture.

Shooting at around f/2.2 for portraiture and weddings the 50/1.4 is stellar (And of course in low light)

Matt

I'd pretty much agree on that. However, there are other factors involved other than sharpness. For example:
* Bokeh
* Colour rendition
* Contrast
* Distortion

However, having looked at your gallery (briefly) I would say there's not much to worry about

If you need a little extra sharpness, then you may find that a slight adjustment in post production workflow will give that to you for nothing rather than investing in primes.... although primes are rather nice (Only primes I have now are the 50/1.4 and 100/2.8 macro since the modern Pentax zooms are so darn good!)
Matt