The "P" is for preflash exposure, not communication The preflash is used so the metering sensor can be used while the mirror is down. The non-preflash TTL used a separate metering mechanism that picked up the reflected light off the film - when used with CCD it kind of got a bit complicated as you're no longer dealing with matte film. The idea of P-TTL was to use the main metering components to suss out the exposure before you lift the mirror for the main shot.

There was a website somewhere that described the protocol between controller and slave. And it wasn't simple!

Personally, I think the wireless communication is just fine It's only the measurement of the exposure during the preflash phase that could be improved.

Matt

Huh?
How would the flash know when to actually fire if the control flash didn't coincide?!
Be aware that the interval between the preflash and the main flash is different (a) on different models of DSLR, (b) if you enable red eye reduction.

If it's in controller mode then the flash is tiny and contributes hardly anything to the exposure. (It has to have some power, otherwise the wireless distance would be useless!)
If it's in master mode then it really does contribute.

Matt

www.gimp.org
(There's also a Photoshop-like port - www.gimpshop.com )
Matt

Ok, you have options

1) Download Adobe Camera Raw converter. This will allow you to convert from K10D PEF to Adobe DNG... which PSE3 should deal with (if I remember correctly). You could also change your RAW setting to DNG in camera - but they take more space on the card!

2) Use the supplied Pentax software and output to TIFF. It uses the Silkypix engine - which, IMHO is the best there is Even a high quality JPG should be perfectly usable (just whack it up to the highest quality).

3) Buy a Sandisk Extreme III 2Gb card from www.picstop.co.uk - won't cost much and comes with a free license for Capture One LE. The current version 4 is pretty good (much better than Adobe RAW conversion, IMO, but not as good as Silkypix especially when working with high ISO images).

Personally, I'd use Silkypix Developer Studio - but that's probably no good for a budget! (I process all my images in SPDS3 and output to TIFF to finalise in Photoshop).

Elements is a very fine package. Don't knock it, or think that you'll need to quickly upgrade to CS3 Check out my website for some Elements tutorials, and also the excellent site at www.hiddenelements.com - laid a very good groundwork for me which was helpful when I eventually did upgrade to CS2

HTH!
Matt

I have a Freecom 500Gb network drive - which was pretty reasonably priced. I keep duplicates of the images on drives at two sites.

(I did start also backing up to DVD as well, but tend not to trust them 100%)

Matt

The main problem with the Pentax DSLRs that used AA is they try to guess what type of battery you have

So, you put in very well charged NiMH and it thinks you've got dying alkaline batteries in there... and the charge appears to disappear until you power off and back on again (and it goes "oh, right, these are NiMH then!" Doh!).

Normal NiMH AA cells have a pretty high self-discharge rate. So they'll be flat in a couple of weeks - even if you don't use them!

The Uniross CR-V3 rechargables seem to hold their charge very well, but I have found that the camera can still get a little confused sometimes. For example, you power up the camera and it says the battery is completely flat. Power off and back on and it's 100%.

It was a REAL shame that Pentax didn't put an option in the custom menus to set the type of battery that you have - most people tend to use the same cells!

Matt

There are CR-V3s and there are CR-V3s

The original CR-V3 batteries have a cell voltage of 3.7v (IIRC) which is too high for the camera. However, Uniross and others produced "100% compatible" CR-V3 rechargeable batteries. These type have 3 contacts on them - the usual + and - and an additional charging pin.

I've used these on both my *ist-D and *ist-DS cameras with no problems at all.

As far as rechargeable AA cells go, I now prefer to use the new style NiMH cells that have an extremely long shelf life. There are a few companies making them, but I've used the "Hybrio" cells from Uniross (got them Picstop.co.uk ). They may be lower capacity (2100mAh), but they retain their charge for up to 12 months - which is superb for flash guns and cameras that don't get used every day

Matt

The times are stored in an internal format (probably seconds past midnight).
The 12/24hr setting on the camera is only for display purposes.
If your PC shows in 12hr format, it's probably because you have your locale settings set to 12hr (Hint: Control Panel, Regional and Language Options).

Because the EXIF data will have the internal time format, it should not matter what either PC or camera is set to

Matt

Note:
You CAN do layers in Elements

There are two ways. Firstly you can use "Clipping Masks" - I have some tutorials for Elements on my website.
Secondly, there are some free plugins that will add a layer mask. Can't remember the urls right now, but www.hiddenelements.com is a very good place to start

Matt

Well, yes... as an image format that's fine. But, I understood we're talking in the context of image capture, so implying that "RAW contains 12-bits per pixel, but JPEG contains 24-bits per pixel" is misleading

After demosaicing, the RAW actually contains 36-bits per pixel (12 each of R, G and B) (or 42 in the case of the K20D). (And the JPEG from camera was demosaic'd anyway from the RAW).

As far as luminance is concerned, a JPEG contains 8-bits per pixel whereas RAW contains 12-bits per pixel. (That's effectively the black and white content for anyone that's wondering ) Typically you find the limits of JPEG when trying to bring out detail in shadow areas and the like.


And now I suspect everyone is confused
Matt