Calibration every two weeks is required for top notch calibration. The backlight & conditions will change gradually, and 2 weeks is the recommended interval.
However, in practice you can normally get away with a lot less (depending on how critical your colour work is). There's normally an option in the software to choose the interval. The ColorVision Spyder 2 Pro has the option (but it's not obvious).

Failing that it may be possible to remove the notification process...
All that kind of messing about is one reason I switched to ArgyllCMS - it gave me much better profiling than anything else I've ever used. And with the new info I'm getting (although complex) it's increasing the quality even more

Matt

More info (hope I'm not talking to myself here!) -
There are two types of monitor ICM/ICC file

There's the "regular" matrix/shaper type, and there's cLUT (Colour Look Up Table)

If the display behaves well then a matrix/shaper will do the job. This is the type generated in ArgyllCMS with "dispcal" (and quite likely by other colour profiling software).

The alternative is a cLUT type ICC file. This takes a bit more work to produce - ArgyllCMS certainly can do this (see the "Two Step" process in the docs). However, not all applications can handle the cLUT type tables

Still, it would appear from my initial checks that Silkypix does At the moment I now have Silkypix, Lightroom, Photoshop and Firefox (with sRGB non-ICC-tagged images) all looking the same and showing all shades! Hooray!

I'm just trying to get to grips with the remaining minor problems (it may just be that FF isn't cLUT aware, but only matrix/shaper). Hopefully I can put together a step-by-step guide on getting a reasonable calibration & profiling

Certainly my old Tosh is showing images better than it ever did before!

Matt

Jackie,
There's some great info here: http://www.bdimitrov.de/kmp/technology/lens_terms.html

DA = Digital format. Probably won't work correctly on film bodies
ED = Extra low dispersion elements (see link)
(IF) = Internal focus (see link)
AL = Aspherical elements (see link)
SDM = Supersonic Drive Motor (if I remember correctly). Some SDM lenses are SDM-only (like the DA17-70). Others have both body-drive focus & SDM (e.g. DA*16-50, DA*50-135)

Limited lenses = no expense spared

Have a good search around on http://www.bdimitrov.de/kmp/index.html

Hope that helps a bit!
Matt

Malware like that doesn't rely of a specific version of OS... just a few security holes in the applications and packages around the OS (like IE, imaging components, TCP/IP stacks etc).

It's hard to find AV software that works on pre W2k (though Eset used to until just now). Then there are all the TCP/IP stack issues (buffer overruns, DNS pollution attacks, etc, etc) that just haven't been fixed in pre XP.
I'd be fine if a 98 machine wasn't on the 'net... but I wouldn't connect it to the big bad wide world out there
Matt

Well, what have you got then? The polarised cap (the black one in your shot) - what value is that?
According to the diagram you should have:

2 x 50nF (0.05uF)
1 x 10uF
2 x 5nF (0.005uF)
1 x C (see document). 500nF (0.5uF) will give up to about 0.5s pause

1 x 1M resistor
4 x 22k resistor
1 x 1k resistor
1 x 1M variable resistor

Hope that helps!
Matt

Fair enough.
It's just the kind of caps that you buy over the counter will be a polarised 10uF. I know you can buy a 10uF non-polarised... if you look hard enough.
But the OP will not have a problem - the 10uF is just a supply smoothing cap and whether it is polarised or not is not important (and so polarised is certainly not a problem). That's all I was getting at
Matt

I have a very early 16-45 - it's superb. CA has never been an issue at all I have a nice set of landscape shots taken with it on the *ist-D, *ist-Ds and K10D (now I use the DA17-70 on the K20D as I use the longer end more).

Sure, I can engineer a situation to make CA show up big time. However, I can do that on almost every lens I have. Really, the 16-45 isn't a problem. You'll see it if you "pixel peep".

The current new price of around £200 is a steal for the 16-45
Matt

Well, it does say "Loves the Jobs You Hate"
Matt

Huh? Yes, the 10uF will be polarised. Shown in the diagram middle bottom. You'll see that one side connects to ground - make sure the "- - - -" side of the cap goes to the ground (shown on the left) and you'll be fine
And yes, marked as "63V" means that's its maximum safe working voltage.

Matt

Here is a document and diagram that I did waaaay back in 2003
http://www.photon.me.uk/matt/cameras/pentax/istd_focal.htm

Matt