Now why does the film "Waking Ned Devine" come to my mind...
Matt

An educated, correct guess
PhotoME ( www.photome.de ) will show a lot more besides the camera serial number... including the temperature at the time of shot!

There must be something that can pick that out and sort it...

Matt

Ditto the above

'Twould be interesting to hear what caused the final split... but it'd be more interesting to hear how long you stick with Pentax gear
Please keep us in the loop Ben!

Matt

The wireless flash involves a preflash! Hence P-TTL. It is a complex protocol that involves a level of communication between the remote flash and the body. The Wireless mode is for the AF360 & AF540

The strobes are going off on the preflash and expending their energy - having nothing left for the main flash.

If you wish to trigger studio strobes you can:
1) Use an IR trigger
2) Buy a cheap, old flashgun (like the AF240) that can be operated in low-power manual mode. This will give a single flash.

Hope that helps!!
Matt

I did this years ago to explain the crop factor...
it may help
http://www.photon.me.uk/matt/cameras/pentax/istd_focal.htm

Enjoy!
Matt

What is interesting about PhotoME are the following points:
* There is a "camera temperature" in degrees celcius! Wow!
* There is full exposure information - showing the 16 point values
* In flash mode there are extra 16 segment metering values.

Cool I can revisit some of the flash tests to analyse a bit deeper!
Thanks for the link!!
Matt

Jamie,
I bought a nice Lee 3 filter holder
Only trouble was... one day I was in a hurry and slipped two filters in the same slot. Ouch - they both got some scratches Still annoyed about that one
...if anyone knows how you can polish a filter...

Matt

As far as I know there are only one kind of Cokin ND grad - and they're pretty "soft" (ie the change between clear and ND is fairly gradual). Unless you are doing sea-scapes all the time, the soft are probably best. The Lee filters are available in Hard and Soft - but a set of 100mm Lees will cost you £52 each (plus the holder and adapters).

I have a set of three - P121L, P121M and P121S. The "M" (medium, 2 stop, 0.6) is used the most, followed by the "L" (light, 1 stop, 0.3), and finally the "S" (severe, 3 stop, 0.9). If you had to choose one, I would go for the 2 stop.

However, as I mentioned, Speed Graphic normally have the three + holder for £33.
You can get P-sized adapters from SRB Film

Hope that helps!
Matt

Toby,
Cokin P-size will be ok. They will work with the 10-20 if you use the special "slim" filter holder.
Hitech do P-size equivalents for a little less money.
www.speedgraphic.co.uk used to have deals on a set of ND grads - which make it very competitive.
There's also www.srbfilm.co.uk who stock the Cokin and Hitech as well as all kinds of adapters.

The Cokin and Hitech do have a touch of magenta colour cast - but nothing too obtrusive. If you stack two of three NDs together you really begin to see it then!
I moved onto the Lee Foundation holder + Cokin Z-Pro size ND grads. They are better quality than the P-size, but have the tiniest tinge of magenta. Lee filters are pretty neutral but don't render blue skies as well as the Cokin (or so I'm told). The Lees are great for really moody skies... but no many can afford them


That said, if you use a tripod and shoot RAW then you may get more mileage from taking two or three shots (the K10D can easily take 3 shots that are 2Ev apart - which is what I'd recommend) and then blend with layer masks in Photoshop. That'll cost you nothing and will work with all lenses

Matt

I reckon that SR is fine for all normal photography - even on a tripod.
SR will begin to make things worse when you have long exposure times - anything over about 1/2sec. So, if you are using a tripod because you have a 20second exposure, then definitely turn off SR (or use the 2-second delay which automatically turns it off).

In practice I haven't found any discernible difference between tripod with SR and tripod without SR with regular shutter speeds.... but I could be wrong

Matt