On the weather sealing issue - I took the K20D, grip & DA*50-135 on a walkabout. Heavens opened and I got absolutely drenched right to the skin. This wasn't a shower

Camera and lens were both dripping in rain. (The hood kept the rain off the front element.) Took loads of images because the lighting was unusual (hadn't shot in the pouring rain before :roll and both were absolutely 100% fine

Took 'em home, dried with a towel and left out to completely dry.

Love it
Beats a 5D then

Matt

Just to add... might be arranging a little meet for flash tutorial
Anyone else interested? (Or does that just make it way too complicated??)
Matt

I'd guess it's in the Fn menu for the flash. On the K20D it's the right hand icon for wireless (non HS). If the K7 has the same set of flash choices then I suspect not.
On the *ist-D you had to cycle through the flash modes to select W+HS on the top LCD and then all would work.

But, of course, this may be something that (a) cannot be done, or (b) may be done in the released firmware. But it'd be interesting to know.

Matt

Danny,
Have you tried flash with the K7? In particular the previous models were very prone to underexposing when there was a bright reflection - even if that reflection occurred in the periphery of the shot (e.g. jewelery, reflective strips, mirror etc)

Have they also added Wireless HS mode to the pop-up? (I believe the K20D/K10D couldn't allow this because of interference with the SR mechanism.)

Thanks!
Matt

Hmmm... it's a little tricky, if I understand your request properly.

Try this: Ctrl-Alt-Shift-~
(That selects the luminance of the image - works in Elements too)
This step prepares a layer mask for the next step...

Then add an adjustment layer - Brightness & Contrast. Set Brightness -28, Contrast +33.

That should add a little contrast in just the whites

There are plenty of other ways around this too, but essentially you are looking at controlling just the highlights. You can experiment with a Levels adjustment layer (just click OK on the dialog without making any changes) and changing the blend mode to Multiply. You can also manually paint in the adjustment by painting on the layer mask.
Curves can also do the same job, but I think you'd need to manually paint on the layer mask to control the effect to just the white area you need.

Have fun
Matt

Depends what version of PS you have Stefan
PS CS2 doesn't have a B&W adjustment layer, nor does Elements

If you have the newer B&W adjustment layer - then cool
But you still might find the result worth the extra little bit of effort... try it
Matt

No

AFAIK, studio lights use essentially the same technology - big capacitor, electronic control & xenon flash tube. It still takes a finite time to dump all the energy into the flash tube, and the less energy you slurp from the cap, the shorter the time - otherwise how would they control the amount of light?

Matt

THE quickest reasonable B&W conversion is as follows:
* Add a new adjustment layer - Hue & Saturation
* Set the Saturation to -100

That's pretty bland, TBH. All colours are converted with the same "weight" - ie yellow looks the same grey as blue

* Now OK the layer and change the layer blend mode from "Normal" to "Color"

Get's better!! Now the colours have correct weights (ie yellow appears lighter than blue).
Now, if you want, you can add some "pop" to it:

* Now add a "Selective Color" adjustment layer
* From the drop down list, pick "Blacks"
* Adjust the black content to taste
* From the drop down list, pic "Whites"
* Adjust as before
* Very occasionally, pick the "Greys" and adjust

There are a whole load of other methods. One worth mentioning is Russell Brown's conversion - again pretty easy. Just Google for it You add a Hue/Sat layer between the image and the B&W conversion layer, and this time adjust the Hue - you can even target individual colours in this tool (adjusting their luminance etc).

The Channel Mixer is also great, but is slower to master than the above methods. (Of course, there are LOADS of other B&W conversion & filtering methods available - Google is your friend to find them! :lol

Matt

Thanks for the link Tel
Stefan - yes, it's a shame they changed the inks on the iP4600. I knew the iP4500 was cheaper to run... but then there are continuous inks available for both now

Just bought a Canon iP4600 (I know! Pentax don't do printers :roll
Bought for £79 delivered from Amazon.
And Canon have a £20 cash back offer running until 13th July.

Not up to ProAM Imaging quality, admittedly, but has duplex printing (slow as it waits for the ink to dry), but text prints clean and fast, and an initial print on Iflord Galerie paper looks really rather good

Running costs are probably going to be high (around £40 for a set of 5 cartridges)

Matt